Categoria: Enéada III

Concerning Fate. POSSIBLE THEORIES ABOUT FATE. 1. The first possibility is that there is a cause both for the things that become, and those that are; the cause of the former being their becoming, and that of the latter, their existence. Again, neither of them may have a cause. Or, in both cases, some may…

Tractate 3 The Third Ennead First tractate. Fate. 1. In the two orders of things – those whose existence is that of process and those in whom it is Authentic Being – there is a variety of possible relation to Cause. Cause might conceivably underly all the entities in both orders or none in either.…

Of Providence. EPICURUS TAUGHT CHANCE AND THE GNOSTICS AN EVIL CREATOR. 1. When Epicurus derives the existence and constitution of the universe from automatism and chance, he commits an absurdity, and stultifies himself. That is self-evident, though the matter have elsewhere been thoroughly demonstrated. But (if the world do not owe its origin to chance)…

Tractate 47 Third Ennead. Second tractate. On providence (1). 1. To make the existence and coherent structure of this Universe depend upon automatic activity and upon chance is against all good sense. Such a notion could be entertained only where there is neither intelligence nor even ordinary perception; and reason enough has been urged against…

Continuation of That on Providence. SOULS SHOW KINSHIP TO WORLD-SOUL BY FIDELITY TO THEIR OWN NATURE. 1. The question (why some reasons are souls, while others are reasons merely, when at the same time universal Reason is a certain Soul), may be answered as follows. Universal Reason (which proceeds from the universal Soul) embraces both…

Tractate 48 Third Ennead. Third tractate. On providence (2). 1. What is our answer? All events and things, good and evil alike, are included under the Universal Reason-Principle of which they are parts – strictly “included” for this Universal Idea does not engender them but encompasses them. The Reason-Principles are acts or expressions of a…

Of Our Individual Guardian. OUTLINE OF NATURES IN THE UNIVERSE. Other principles remain unmoved while producing and exhibiting their (”hypostases,” substantial acts, or) forms of existence. The (universal) Soul, however, is in motion while producing and exhibiting her (”substantial act,” or) forms of existence, namely, the functions of sensation and growth, reaching down as far…

Tractate 15 Third Ennead. Fourth tractate. Our tutelary spirit. 1. Some Existents [Absolute Unity and Intellectual-Principle] remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed-Idea, come into being; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty – that in any of its expression-forms – Nature and all…

Of Love, or “Eros.” LOVE AS GOD, GUARDIAN AND PASSION. 1. Is Love a divinity, a guardian, or a passion of the human soul? Or is it all three under different points of view? In this case, what is it under each of these points of view? These are the questions we are to consider,…

Tractate 50 Third Ennead. Fifth tractate. On love. 1. What is Love? A God, a Celestial Spirit, a state of mind? Or is it, perhaps, sometimes to be thought of as a God or Spirit and sometimes merely as an experience? And what is it essentially in each of these respects? These important questions make…

Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Entities (Soul and and Matter). A. OF THE SOUL. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PASSIBILITY OF JUDGMENT AND THE SOUL. 1. Sensations are not affections, but actualizations, and judgments, relative to passions. The affections occur in what is other (than the soul); that is, in the organized body, and the judgment in…

Tractate 26 Third Ennead. Sixth tractate. The impassivity of the unembodied. 1. In our theory, feelings are not states; they are action upon experience, action accompanied by judgement: the states, we hold, are seated elsewhere; they may be referred to the vitalized body; the judgement resides in the Soul, and is distinct from the state…

Of Time and Eternity. A. ETERNITY. INTRODUCTION. ETERNITY EXISTS PERPETUALLY, WHILE TIME BECOMES. (1.) When saying that eternity and time differ, that eternity refers to perpetual existence, and time to what “becomes” (this visible world), we are speaking off-hand, spontaneously, intuitionally, and common language supports these forms of expression. When however we try to define…

Tractate 45 Third Ennead. Seventh tractate. Time and eternity. 1. Eternity and Time; two entirely separate things, we explain “the one having its being in the everlasting Kind, the other in the realm of Process, in our own Universe”; and, by continually using the words and assigning every phenomenon to the one or the other…

Of Nature, Contemplation and Unity. (These three subjects are discussed in paragraphs 1-4, 5-7, and 8-16. The plain paragraph numbers are those of the Teubner edition; those in parenthesis are the Creuzer (Didot) edition.) A. OF NATURE. INTRODUCTION: AS A JOKE, IT MAY BE SAID THAT EVEN PLANTS ASPIRE TO CONTEMPLATION. 1. If as a…