MacKenna-Plotinus: Sensível

But a graver problem confronts us at the outset: Are the ten found alike in the Intellectual and in the Sensible realms? Or are all found in the Sensible and some only in the Intellectual? All in the Intellectual and some in the Sensible is manifestly impossible. Enneads  : VI I

At this point it would be natural to investigate which of the ten belong to both spheres, and whether the Existents of the Intellectual are to be ranged under one and the same genus with the Existents in the Sensible, or whether the term "Existence" [or Substance] is equivocal as applied to both realms. If the equivocation exists, the number of genera will be increased: if there is no equivocation, it is strange to find the one same "Existence" applying to the primary and to the derivative Existents when there is no common genus embracing both primal and secondary. Enneads: VI I

But are we really obliged to posit the existence of such genera? Take Substance, for Substance must certainly be our starting-point: what are the grounds for regarding Substance as one single genus? It has been remarked that Substance cannot be a single entity common to both the Intellectual and the Sensible worlds. We may add that such community would entail the existence of something prior to Intellectual and Sensible Substances alike, something distinct from both as predicated of both; and this prior would be neither body nor unembodied; for it were one or the other, body would be unembodied, or the unembodied would be the body. Enneads: VI I

This conclusion must not however prevent our seeking in the actual substance of the Sensible world an element held in common by Matter, by Form and by their Composite, all of which are designated as substances, though it is not maintained that they are Substance in an equal degree; Form is usually held to be Substance in a higher degree than Matter, and rightly so, in spite of those who would have Matter to be the more truly real. Enneads: VI I

This is the place for enquiring also whether the qualities of the Sensible and Intellectual realms can be included under one head – a question intended only for those who ascribe qualities to the higher realm as well as the lower. And even if Ideal Forms of qualities are not posited, yet once the term "habit" is used in reference to Intellect, the question arises whether there is anything common to that habit and the habit we know in the lower. Enneads: VI I

Let us examine this soul, presented to us from the Intellectual realm as body from the Sensible. How is its unity a plurality? How is its plurality a unity? Clearly its unity is not that of a composite formed from diverse elements, but that of a single nature comprising a plurality. Enneads VI,2,

Observe also how in other things Motion or life is clearly separated from Being – a separation impossible, doubtless, in True Being, but possible in its shadow and namesake. In the portrait of a man much is left out, and above all the essential thing, life: the "Being" of sensible things just such a shadow of True Being, an abstraction from that Being complete which was life in the Archetype; it is because of this incompleteness that we are able in the Sensible world to separate Being from life and life from Being. Enneads VI,2,

We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is contained in Being. How is what is termed the "dividing" effected – especially the dividing of the genera Being and unity? Is it the same division, or is it different in the two cases? First then: In what sense, precisely, is any given particular called and known to be a unity? Secondly: Does unity as used of Being carry the same connotation as in reference to the Absolute? Unity is not identical in all things; it has a different significance according as it is applied to the Sensible and the Intellectual realms – Being too, of course, comports such a difference – and there is a difference in the unity affirmed among sensible things as compared with each other; the unity is not the same in the cases of chorus, camp, ship, house; there is a difference again as between such discrete things and the continuous. Nevertheless, all are representations of the one exemplar, some quite remote, others more effective: the truer likeness is in the Intellectual; Soul is a unity, and still more is Intellect a unity and Being a unity. Enneads VI,2,

But we must keep in mind what this "outside" means. Up to the production of the image, the Intellectual realm is wholly and exclusively composed of Intellectual Beings: in the same way the Sensible world, representing that in so far as it is able to retain the likeness of a living being, is itself a living being: the relation is like that of a portrait or reflection to the original which is regarded as prior to the water or the painting reproducing it. Enneads VI,2,

We must begin on these lines: The subject of our discussion is the Sensible realm: Sensible Existence is entirely embraced by what we know as the Universe: our duty, then, would seem to be clear enough – to take this Universe and analyse its nature, classifying its constituent parts and arranging them by species. Suppose that we were making a division of speech: we should reduce its infinity to finite terms, and from the identity appearing in many instances evolve a unity, then another and another, until we arrived at some definite number; each such unit we should call a species if imposed upon individuals, a genus if imposed upon species. Thus, every species of speech – and similarly all phenomena – might be referred to a unity; speech – or element – might be predicated of them all. Enneads VI,3,

This procedure however is as we have already shown, impossible in dealing with the subject of our present enquiry. New genera must be sought for this Universe-genera distinct from those of the Intellectual, inasmuch as this realm is different from that, analogous indeed but never identical, a mere image of the higher. True, it involves the parallel existence of Body and Soul, for the Universe is a living form: essentially however Soul is of the Intellectual and does not enter into the structure of what is called Sensible Being. Enneads VI,3,

Remembering this fact, we must – however great the difficulty – exclude Soul from the present investigation, just as in a census of citizens, taken in the interests of commerce and taxation, we should ignore the alien population. As for the experiences to which Soul is indirectly subject in its conjunction with Body and by reason of Body’s presence, their classification must be attempted at a later stage, when we enquire into the details of Sensible Existence. Enneads VI,3,

Our first observations must be directed to what passes in the Sensible realm for Substance. It is, we shall agree, only by analogy that the nature manifested in bodies is designated as Substance, and by no means because such terms as Substance or Being tally with the notion of bodies in flux; the proper term would be Becoming. Enneads VI,3,

Why not resort to analogy? Admitted that the classification of the Sensible cannot proceed along the identical lines marked out for the Intellectual: is there any reason why we should not for Intellectual-Being substitute Matter, and for Intellectual Motion substitute Sensible Form, which is in a sense the life and consummation of Matter? The inertia of Matter would correspond with Stability, while the Identity and Difference of the Intellectual would find their counterparts in the similarity and diversity which obtain in the Sensible realm. Enneads VI,3,

But, in the first place, Matter does not possess or acquire Form as its life or its Act; Form enters it from without, and remains foreign to its nature. Secondly, Form in the Intellectual is an Act and a motion; in the Sensible Motion is different from Form and accidental to it: Form in relation to Matter approximates rather to Stability than to Motion; for by determining Matter’s indetermination it confers upon it a sort of repose. Enneads VI,3,

The first three entities [Matter, Form, Composite] go, as we have discovered, to make a single common genus, the Sensible counterpart of Substance. Then follow in order Relation, Quantity, Quality, Time-during-which, Place-in-which, Motion; though, with Time and Space already included [under Relation], Time-during-which and Place-in-which become superfluous. Enneads VI,3,

These are incontrovertible facts in regard to the pseudo-substance of the Sensible realm: if they apply also in some degree to the True Substance of the Intellectual, the coincidence is, doubtless, to be attributed to analogy and ambiguity of terms. Enneads VI,3,

We are aware that "the first" is so called only in relation to the things which come after it: "first" has no absolute significance; the first of one series is subsequent to the last of another. "Substrate," similarly, varies in meaning [as applied to the higher and to the lower], while as for passivity its very existence in the Intellectual is questionable; if it does exist there, it is not the passivity of the Sensible. Enneads VI,3,

The Being of the Sensible resembles the white in not originating in itself. It must therefore be regarded as dependent for its being upon the Authentic Being, as white is dependent upon the Authentic Whiteness, and the Authentic Whiteness dependent for its whiteness upon participation in that Supreme Being whose existence is underived. Enneads VI,3,

But Matter, it may be contended, is the source of existence to the Sensible things implanted in it. From what source, then, we retort, does Matter itself derive existence and being? That Matter is not a Primary we have established elsewhere. If it be urged that other things can have no subsistence without being implanted in Matter, we admit the claim for Sensible things. But though Matter be prior to these, it is not thereby precluded from being posterior to many things-posterior, in fact, to all the beings of the Intellectual sphere. Its existence is but a pale reflection, and less complete than that of the things implanted in it. These are Reason-Principles and more directly derived from Being: Matter has of itself no Reason-Principle whatever; it is but a shadow of a Principle, a vain attempt to achieve a Principle. Enneads VI,3,

The division into elements must, in short, be abandoned, especially in regard to Sensible Substance, known necessarily by sense rather than by reason. We must no longer look for help in constituent parts, since such parts will not be substances, or at any rate not sensible substances. Enneads VI,3,

Our plan must be to apprehend what is constant in stone, earth, water and the entities which they compose – the vegetal and animal forms, considered purely as sensibles – and to confine this constant within a single genus. Neither Matter nor Form will thus be overlooked, for Sensible Substance comports them; fire and earth and the two intermediaries consist of Matter and Form, while composite things are actually many substances in one. They all, moreover, have that common property which distinguishes them from other things: serving as subjects to these others, they are never themselves present in a subject nor predicated of any other thing. Similarly, all the characteristics which we have ascribed to Substance find a place in this classification. Enneads VI,3,

But Sensible Substance is never found apart from magnitude and quality: how then do we proceed to separate these accidents? If we subtract them – magnitude, figure, colour, dryness, moistness – what is there left to be regarded as Substance itself? All the substances under consideration are, of course, qualified. Enneads VI,3,

What then can this "part" be? Matter may be suggested. But are we actually to maintain that the particular sensible substance consists of a conglomeration of qualities and Matter, while Sensible Substance as a whole is merely the sum of these coagulations in the uniform Matter, each one separately forming a quale or a quantum or else a thing of many qualities? Is it true to say that everything whose absence leaves subsistence incomplete is a part of the particular substance, while all that is accidental to the substance already existent takes independent rank and is not submerged in the mixture which constitutes this so-called substance? I decline to allow that whatever combines in this way with anything else is Substance if it helps to produce a single mass having quantity and quality, whereas taken by itself and divorced from this complementary function it is a quality: not everything which composes the amalgam is Substance, but only the amalgam as a whole. Enneads VI,3,

And let no one take exception on the ground that we produce Sensible Substance from non-substances. The whole amalgam itself is not True Substance; it is merely an imitation of that True Substance which has Being apart from its concomitants, these indeed being derived from it as the possessor of True Being. In the lower realm the case is different: the underlying ground is sterile, and from its inability to produce fails to attain to the status of Being; it remains a shadow, and on this shadow is traced a sketch – the world of Appearance. Enneads VI,3,

So much for one of the genera – the "Substance," so called, of the Sensible realm. Enneads VI,3,

Differentiation by form or shape is no more out of place than a division based on qualities – heat, cold and the like. If it be objected that qualities go to make bodies what they are, then, we reply, so do blendings, colours, shapes. Since our discussion is concerned with Sensible Substance, it is not strange that it should turn upon distinctions related to sense-perception: this Substance is not Being pure and simple, but the Sensible Being which we call the Universe. Enneads VI,3,

These observations will suffice for the Being [Substance], or rather the Becoming, which obtains in the Sensible realm. Enneads VI,3,

Passing to Quantity and the quantum, we have to consider the view which identifies them with number and magnitude on the ground that everything quantitative is numbered among Sensible things or rated by the extension of its substrate: we are here, of course, discussing not Quantity in isolation, but that which causes a piece of wood to be three yards long and gives the five in "five horses," Enneads VI,3,

We have spoken of Quality as combining with other entities, Matter and Quantity, to form the complete Sensible Substance; this Substance, so called, may be supposed to constitute the manifold world of Sense, which is not so much an essence as a quale. Thus, for the essence of fire we must look to the Reason-Principle; what produces the visible aspect is, properly speaking, a quale. Enneads VI,3,

When each of the entities bound up with the pseudo-substance is taken apart from the rest, the name of Quality is given to that one among them, by which without pointing to essence or quantity or motion we signify the distinctive mark, the type or aspect of a thing – for example, the beauty or ugliness of a body. This beauty – need we say? – is identical in name only with Intellectual Beauty: it follows that the term "Quality" as applied to the Sensible and the Intellectual is necessarily equivocal; even blackness and whiteness are different in the two spheres. Enneads VI,3,

But the beauty in the germ, in the particular Reason-Principle – is this the same as the manifested beauty, or do they coincide only in name? Are we to assign this beauty – and the same question applies to deformity in the soul – to the Intellectual order, or to the Sensible? That beauty is different in the two spheres is by now clear. If it be embraced in Sensible Quality, then virtue must also be classed among the qualities of the lower. But merely some virtues will take rank as Sensible, others as Intellectual qualities. Enneads VI,3,

It may even be doubted whether the arts, as Reason-Principles, can fairly be among Sensible qualities; Reason-Principles, it is true, may reside in Matter, but "matter" for them means Soul. On the other hand, their being found in company with Matter commits them in some degree to the lower sphere. Take the case of lyrical music: it is performed upon strings; melody, which may be termed a part of the art, is sensuous sound – though, perhaps, we should speak here not of parts but of manifestations [Acts]: yet, called manifestations, they are nonetheless sensuous. The beauty inherent in body is similarly bodiless; but we have assigned it to the order of things bound up with body and subordinate to it. Enneads VI,3,

Geometry and arithmetic are, we shall maintain, of a twofold character; in their earthly types they rank with Sensible Quality, but in so far as they are functions of pure Soul, they necessarily belong to that other world in close proximity to the Intellectual. This, too, is in Plato’s view the case with music and astronomy. Enneads VI,3,

The arts concerned with material objects and making use of perceptible instruments and sense-perception must be classed with Sensible Quality, even though they are dispositions of the Soul, attendant upon its apostasy. Enneads VI,3,

On this principle, the beauty in the germ, and still more the blackness and whiteness in it, will be included among Sensible Qualities. Enneads VI,3,

Are we, then, to rank the individual soul, as containing these Reason-Principles, with Sensible Substance? But we do not even identify the Principles with body; we merely include them in Sensible Quality on the ground that they are connected with body and are activities of body. The constituents of Sensible Substance have already been specified; we have no intention whatever of adding to them Substance bodiless. Enneads VI,3,

But we refrain from assigning Soul to Sensible Substance, on the ground that we have already referred to Quality [which is Sensible] those affections of Soul which are related to body. On the contrary, Soul, conceived apart from affection and Reason-Principle, we have restored to its origin, leaving in the lower realm no substance which is in any sense Intellectual. Enneads VI,3,

If we decide to refer all souls to the higher, we are still at liberty to perform for Sensible qualities a division founded upon the senses themselves – the eyes, the ears, touch, taste, smell; and if we are to look for further differences, colours may be subdivided according to varieties of vision, sounds according to varieties of hearing, and so with the other senses: sounds may also be classified qualitatively as sweet, harsh, soft. Enneads VI,3,

The Motion which acts upon Sensible objects enters from without, and so shakes, drives, rouses and thrusts its participants that they may neither rest nor preserve their identity – and all to the end that they may be caught into that restlessness, that flustering excitability which is but an image of Life. Enneads VI,3,

Suppose the contrary: we decide that Rest is different from Stability inasmuch as Stability belongs to the utterly immobile, Rest to the stationary which, though of a nature to move, does not move. Now, if Rest means coming to rest, it must be regarded as a motion which has not yet ceased but still continues; but if we suppose it to be incompatible with Motion, we have first to ask whether there is in the Sensible world anything without motion. Enneads VI,3,

What we have to observe is the essential character of this Sensible counterpart of Stability. Enneads VI,3,