The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

e sense that it is not a thing of Real-being, but belongs to some other Kind of existent, we have still two Principles, one referring directly to the substratum, the other merely exhibiting the relation of the Privation to other things (as their potentiality) .

Or we might say that the one concept defines the relation of substratum to what is not substratum (but realised entity) while that of Privation, in bringing out the indeterrninateness of Matter, applies to

MATTER IN ITS TWO KINDS

II. 4.15]

p. 193

the Matter in itself (and not in its relationships) : but this stiU makes Privation and Matter two in reason though one in substratum.

Now if Matter possesses an identity — though only the identity of being indeterminate, unfixed and without quality — how can we bring it so under two principles ?

15-

The further question, therefore, is raised whether boundlessness and indetermination are things lodging in something other than themselves as a sort of attribute and whether Privation (or Negation of quality) is also an attribute residing in some separate substratum.

Now all that is Number and Reason-Principle is outside of boundlessness (is fully delimited) : these (Number and Reason) bestow bound and settlement and order in general upon all else : neither anything that has been brought under order nor any Order-Absolute (apart from themselves) is needed to bring them under order. The thing that has to be brought under order (e.g. Matter) is other than the Ordering Principle which is Limit and Definiteness and Reason-Principle. Therefore, necessarily, the thing to be brought under order and to definiteness must be in itself a thing lacking delimitation.

Now Matter is a thing that is brought under order — like all that shares its nature by participation or by possessing the same principle — therefore, necessarily. Matter is The Undelimited (the Absolute, the " thing ” Indefiniteness) and not merely the recipient of a non-essential quality of Indefiniteness entering as an attribute.

For, first, any attribute to any subject must be a Reason-Principle ; and Indefiniteness is not a Reason-Principle.

Secondly, what must a thing be to take Indefiniteness as an attribute? Obviously it must, beforehand, be either Definiteness (the Principle) or a defined thing. But Matter is neither.

Then again Indefiniteness entering as an attribute into the definite must cease to be indefinite : but (since Matter remains true to its Kind, i.e. is indefinite as long as it is Matter) Indefiniteness has not entered as an attribute into Matter : that is. Matter is essentially Indefiniteness.

as an attribute into the definite must cease to be indefinite : but (since Matter remains true to its Kind, i.e. is indefinite as long as it is Matter) Indefiniteness has not entered as an attribute into Matter : that is. Matter is essentially Indefiniteness.

p. 194

PLOTINUS

The Matter even of the Intellectual Realm is the Indefinite, (the undelimited) ; it must be a thing generated by the undefined nature, the illimitable nature, of the Eternal Being, The One — an illimitableness, however, not possessing native existence There (not inherent) but engendered by The One.

But how can Matter be common to both spheres, be here and be
There ?

Because even Indefiniteness has two phases.

But what difference can there be between phase and phase of Indefiniteness ?

The difference of archetype and image.

So that Matter here (as only an image of Indefiniteness) would be less indefinite ?

On the contrary, more indefinite as an Image-thing remote from true being. Indefiniteness is the greater in the less ordered object ; the less deep in good, the deeper in evil. The Indeterminate in the Intellectual Realm, where there is truer being, might almost be called merely an Image of Indefiniteness : in this lower Sphere where there is less Being, where there is a refusal of the Authentic, and an adoption of the Image- Kind, Indefiniteness is more authentically indefinite.

But this argument seems to make no difference between the indefinite object and Indefiniteness-essential. Is there none ?

In any object in which Reason and Matter co-exist we distinguish between Indeterminateness and the Indeterminate subject : but where Matter stands alone we make them identical, or, better, we would say right out that in that case essential Indeterminateness is not present ; for it is a Reason-Principle and could not lodge in the indeterminate object without at once annulling the indeterminateness.

Matter, then, must be described as Indefinite of itself, by its natural opposition to Reason-Principle. Reason is Reason and nothing else ; just so Matter, opposed by its indeterminateness to Reason, is Indeterminateness and nothing else.

II. 4. i6]

MATTER IN ITS TWO KINDS

p. 195

16.

Then Matter is simply Alienism (the Principle of Difference) ?

No : it is merely that part of Alienism which stands in contradiction with the Authentic Existents which are Reason-Principles. So understood, this non-existent has a certain measure of existence ; for it is identical with Privation, which also is a thing standing in opposition to the things that exist in Reason.

ds in contradiction with the Authentic Existents which are Reason-Principles. So understood, this non-existent has a certain measure of existence ; for it is identical with Privation, which also is a thing standing in opposition to the things that exist in Reason.

But must not Privation cease to have existence, when what has been lacking is present at last ?

By no means : the recipient of a state or character is not a state but the (negation or) Privation of the state ; and that into which determination enters is neither a determined object nor determination itself, but simply the wholly or partly undetermined.

Still, must not the nature of this Undetermined be annulled by the entry of Determination, especially where (as in Matter) this is no mere attribute (but the very nature of the recipient) ?

No doubt to introduce quantitative determination into an undetermined object would annul the original state ; but in the particular case, the introduction of determination only confirms the original state, bringing it into actuality, into full effect, as sowing brings out the natural quality of land or as a female organism impregnated by the male is not defeminised but becomes more decidedly of its sex ; the thing becomes more emphatically itself.

But on this reasoning must not Matter owe its evil to having in some degree participated in good ?

No : its evil is in its first lack : it was not a possessor (as the land or the female organism are, of some specific character).

To lack one thing and to possess another, in something like equal proportions, is to hold a middle state of good and evil : but whatsoever (like this substratum) possesses nothing and so is in destitution — and especially what is essentially destitution — must be evil in its own Kind.

For in Matter we have no mere absence of means or of strength ; it is utter destitution — of sense, of virtue, of beauty, of pattern, of Ideal

p. 196

PLOTINUS

principle, of quality. This is surely ugliness, utter disgracefulness, unredeemed evil.

The Matter in the Intellectual Realm is an Existent, for there is nothing previous to it except the Beyond-Existence ; but what precedes the Matter of this sphere is Existence ; by its alienism in regard to the beauty and good of Existence, Matter is therefore a non-existent.

FIFTH TRACTATE
On Potentiality and Actuality

I.

A distinction is made between things existing actually and things existing potentially ; a certain Actuality, also, is spoken of as a really existent entity. We must consider what content there is in these terms.