The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

reasoning, much as it leaves the art of writing ; some of the matter of logic, no doubt, it considers necessary — to clear the ground — but it makes itself the judge, here as in everything else ; where it sees use, it uses ; anything it finds superfluous, it leaves

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PLOTINUS

to whatever department of learning or practice may turn that matter to account.

5-

But whence does this science derive its own initial laws ?

The Intellectual-Principle furnishes standards, the most certain for any soul that is able to apply them. What else is necessary, Dialectic puts together for itself, combining and dividing, until it has reached perfect Intellection. For,” we read, “ it is the purest (perfection) of Intellection and Contemplative- Wisdom.” And, being the noblest method and science that exists it must needs deal with Authentic- Existence, The Highest there is : as Contemplative-Wisdom (or trueknowing) it deals with Being, as Intellection with what transcends Being.

What, then, is Philosophy ?

Philosophy is the supremely precious.

Is Dialectic, then, the same as Philosophy ?

It is the precious part of Philosophy. We must not think of it as the mere tool of the metaphysician : Dialectic does not consist of bare theories and rules : it deals with verities ; Existences are, as it were. Matter to it, or at least it proceeds methodically towards Existences, and possesses itself, at the one step, of the notions and of the reahties.

Untruth and sophism it knows, not directly, not of its own nature, but merely as something produced outside itself, something which it recognises to be foreign to the verities laid up in itself ; in the falsity presented to it, it perceives a clash with its own canon of truth. Dialectic, that is to say, has no knowledge of propositions — collections of words — but it knows the truth and, in that knowledge, knows what the schools call their propositions : it knows above all, the operation of the soul, and, by virtue of this knowing, it knows, too, what is affirmed and what is denied, whether the denial is of what was asserted or of something else, and whether propositions agree or differ ; all that is submitted to it, it attacks with the directness of sense-perception and it leaves petty precisions of process to what other science may care for such exercises.

I. 3. 6j

DIALECTIC

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6.

something else, and whether propositions agree or differ ; all that is submitted to it, it attacks with the directness of sense-perception and it leaves petty precisions of process to what other science may care for such exercises.

I. 3. 6j

DIALECTIC

p. 55

6.

Philosophy has other provinces, but Dialectic is its precious part : in its study of the laws of the universe, Philosophy draws on Dialectic much as other studies and crafts use Arithmetic, though, of course, the alliance between Philosophy and Dialectic is closer.

And in Morals, too. Philosophy uses Dialectic : by Dialectic it comes to contemplation, though it originates of itself the moral state or rather the discipline from which the moral state develops.

Our reasoning faculties employ the data of Dialectic almost as their proper possession for they are mainly concerned about Matter (whose place and worth Dialectic establishes).

And while the other virtues bring the reason to bear upon particular experiences and acts, the virtue of Wisdom (i.e. the virtue peculiarly induced by Dialectic) is a certain super-reasoning much closer to the Universal ; for it deals with (such abstract ideas as) correspondence and sequence, the choice of time for action and inaction, the adoption of this course, the rejection of that other ; Wisdom and Dialectic have the task of presenting all things as Universals and stripped of matter for treatment by the Understanding.

But can these inferior kinds of virtue exist without Dialectic and philosophy ?

Yes — but imperfectly, inadequately.

And is it possible to be a Sage, a Master in Dialectic, without these lower virtues ?

It would not happen : the lower will spring either before or together with the higher. And it is likely that everyone normally possesses the natural virtues from which, when Wisdom steps in, the perfected virtue develops. After the natural virtues, then. Wisdom and, so the perfecting of the moral nature. Once the natural virtues exist, both orders, the natural and the higher, ripen side by side to their final excellence : or as the one advances it carries forward the other towards perfection.

But, ever, the natural virtue is imperfect in vision and in strength — and to both orders of virtue the essential matter is from what principles we derive them.

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PLOTINUS

FOURTH TRACTATE
On True Happiness

I.

it carries forward the other towards perfection.

But, ever, the natural virtue is imperfect in vision and in strength — and to both orders of virtue the essential matter is from what principles we derive them.

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PLOTINUS

FOURTH TRACTATE
On True Happiness

I.

Are we to make True Happiness one and the same thing with Welfare or Prosperity and therefore within the reach of the other living beings as well as ourselves ?

There is certainly no reason to deny well-being to any of them as long as their lot allows them to flourish unhindered after their kind.

Whether we make Welfare consist in pleasant conditions of life, or in the accomplishment of some appropriate task, by either account it may fall to them as to us. For certainly they may at once be pleasantly placed and engaged about some function that lies in their nature : take for an instance such living beings as have the gift of music ; finding themselves well-off in other ways, they sing, too, as their nature is, and so their day is pleasant to them.

And if, even, we set Happiness in some ultimate Term pursued by inborn tendency, then on this head, too, we must allow it to animals from the moment of their attaining this Ultimate : the nature in them comes to a halt, having fulfilled its vital course from a beginning to an end.

It may be a distasteful notion, this bringing-down of happiness so low as to the animal world — making it over, as then we must, even to the vilest of them and not withholding it even from the plants, living they too and having a life unfolding to a Term.

But, to begin with, it is surely unsound to deny that good of life to animals only because they do not appear to man to be of great account. And as for plants, we need not necessarily allow to them what we accord to the other forms of life, since they have no feeling. It is true people might be found to declare prosperity possible to the very plants : they have life, and life may bring good or evil ; the plants may thrive or wither, bear or be barren.

No : if Pleasure be the Term, if here be the good of life, it is impossible to deny the good of life to any order of living things ; if the

HAPPINESS

I. 4- 2]

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Term be inner-peace, equally impossible ; impossible, too, if the good of life be to live in accordance with the purpose of nature.

2.

Those that deny the happy life to the plants on the ground that they lack sensation are really denying it to all living things.