The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

geably.

Thus assuredly Sense-Perception, Discursive-Reasoning and all our ordinary mentation are foreign to the Soul : for sensation is a receiving — whether of an Ideal-Form or of an impassive body — and reasoning and all ordinary mental action deal with sensation.

The question still remains to be examined in the matter of the intellections — whether these are to be assigned to the Soul — and as to

I. 1.3]

THE ANIMATE AND THE MAN

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Pure-Pleasure (pleasure apart from sense), whether this belongs to the
Soul in its solitary state.

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We may treat of the Soul as in the body — whether it be set above it or actually within it — since the association of the two constitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.

Now from this relation, from the Soul using the body as an instrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body’s experiences : a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the tools with which he is working.

It may be objected that the Soul must, however, have Sense- Perception since its use of its instrument must acquaint it with the external conditions, and such knowledge comes by way of sense. Thus, it will be argued, the eyes are the instrument of seeing, and seeing may bring distress to the soul : hence the Soul may feel sorrow and pain and every other affection that belongs to the body ; and from this again will spring desire, the Soul seeking the mending of its instrument.

But, we ask, how, possibly, can these affections pass from body to Soul ? Body may communicate qualities or conditions to another body : but — body to Soul ? Something happens to A ; does that make it happen to B ? As long as we have agent and instrument, there are two distinct entities ; if the Soul uses the body it is separate from it.

But apart from the philosophical separation how does Soul stand to body ?

Clearly there is a combination. And for this several modes are possible. There might be a complete coalescence : Soul might be interwoven through the body : or it might be an Ideal-Form detached or an Ideal-Form in governing contact like a pilot : or there might be part of the Soul detached and another part in contact, the disjoined part being the agent or user, the conjoined part ranking with the instrument or thing used.

ht be an Ideal-Form detached or an Ideal-Form in governing contact like a pilot : or there might be part of the Soul detached and another part in contact, the disjoined part being the agent or user, the conjoined part ranking with the instrument or thing used.

In this last case it will be the double task of philosophy to direct this lower Soul towards the higher, the agent, and except in so far as the

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conjunction is absolutely necessary, to sever the agent from the instrument, the body, so that it need not forever have its Act upon or through this inferior.

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Let us consider, then, the hypothesis of a coalescence.

Now if there is a coalescence, the lower is ennobled, the nobler degraded ; the body is raised in the scale of being as made participant in life ; the Soul, as associated with death and unreason, is brought lower. How can a lessening of the life-quality produce an increase such as Sense-Perception ?

No : the body has acquired life, it is the body that will acquire, with life, sensation and the affections coming by sensation. Desire, then, will belong to the body, as the objects of desire are to be enjoyed by the body. And fear, too, will belong to the body alone ; for it is the body’s doom to fail of its joys and to perish.

Then again we should have to examine how such a coalescence could be conceived : we might find it impossible : perhaps all this is like announcing the coalescence of things utterly incongruous in kind, let us say of a line and whiteness.

Next for the suggestion that the Soul is interwoven through the body : such a relation would not give woof and warp community of sensation : the interwoven element might very well suffer no change : the permeating soul might remain entirely untouched by what affects the body — as light goes always free of all it floods — and all the more so, since, precisely, we are asked to consider it as (not confined to any one part but) diffused throughout the entire frame.

Under such an interweaving, then, the Soul would not be subjected to the body’s affections and experiences : it would be present rather as Ideal-Form in Matter.

Let us then suppose Soul to be in body as Ideal-Form in Matter. Now if — the first possibility — the Soul is an essence, a self-existent, it can be present only as separable form and will therefore all the more decidedly be the Using-Principle (and therefore unaffected).

hen suppose Soul to be in body as Ideal-Form in Matter. Now if — the first possibility — the Soul is an essence, a self-existent, it can be present only as separable form and will therefore all the more decidedly be the Using-Principle (and therefore unaffected).

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THE ANIMATE AND THE MAN

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Suppose, next, the Soul to be present like axe-form on iron : here, no doubt, the form is all important but it is still (not the one member but) the axe, the complement of iron and form, that effects whatever is effected by the iron thus modified : on this analogy, therefore, we are even more strictly compelled to assign all the experiences of the combination to the body : their natural seat is the material member, the instrument, the potential recipient of life (and not the Life-Principle itself).

Compare the passage (in Plato) where we read that “ it is absurd to suppose that the Soul weaves ” ; equally absurd to think of it as desiring, grieving. All this is rather in the province of something which we may call the Animate.

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Now this Animate might be merely the body as having life : it might be the Couplement of Soul and body : it might be a third and different entity formed from both.

The Soul in turn — apart from the nature of the Animate — must be either impassive, merely causing Sense-Perception in its yoke-fellow, or sympathetic ; and, if sympathetic, it may have identical experiences with its fellow or merely correspondent experiences : desire for example in the Animate may be something quite distinct from the accompanying movement or state in the desiring faculty.

The body, the live-body as we know it, we will consider later.

Let us take first the Couplement of body and Soul. How could suffering, for example, be seated in this Couplement ?

It may be suggested that some unwelcome state of the body produces a distress which reaches to a Sensitive-Faculty which in turn merges into Soul. But this account still leaves the origin of the sensation unexplained.

Another suggestion might be that all is due to an opinion or judgement : some evil seems to have befallen the man or his belongings and this conviction sets up a state of trouble in the body and in the entire Animate. But this account leaves still a question as to the source and seat of the judgement : does it belong to the Soul or to the Couplement ? Besides, the judgement that evil is present does not involve the feeling

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of grief : the judgement might very well arise and the grief by no means follow : one may think oneself slighted and yet not be angry ; and