The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

duality in an august sense and, so, is often though not by any means always, nearer to the Plotinian notion. The need of some such departure from the customary term was suggested by Mr. Meade’s use of the emphatic “ That which is ” for the same notion : Mr. Meade’s term was rejected only because it sounds a little grandiose, does not pack conveniently into every sentence and has no handy plural.

As for Plotinus’ use of the idea, it must be pointed out that it represents most often the very superlative of altitude but sometimes is employed in a derogatory sense : the Sphere of Existence is often The Intellectual-and-Intelligible-Kosmos, Divine Mind, or in general The Divine ; sometimes, however, it means the realm of process or of ‘‘ Becoming,” as opposed to the stately immobility of the Divine Beings, then considered as collectively Supra-Existents.

Sensation and Sense-perception are used, almost indifferently, for any action orp. 125 passive-state by which man experiences the material world or any of its manifestations or representations.

Act, with the capital, usually translates the difficult word Energeia and stands for the Expression of the Identity of any being or for its characteristic function, an expression and function which may, often, be entirely within, the very reverse of any operation upon the outer.

In general. Capitalisation implies some more or less important technical use of a word.

” There ” — " In the Supreme ” — “ In the Beyond ” and other similar words or phrases translate at convenience the word " Ekei ” used by Plotinus for the Divine Sphere, the Intelligible World.

The Sage translates ho Spoudaios, and means the achieved Mystic, the Adept, almost the " Uniate,” the human being who has become “ wholly the Divine.”

Philosophy in Plotinus often means not Metaphysics but the Act or State of the Uniate : it might, often, without much fault of tone, be taken as the equivalent of i. Sanctity, and 2, the Mystic Way.

Earlier and Later refer to order of emanation and therefore convey the rank of nearness or farness with regard to the Divine.

" We read ” represents the ” He says ” with which Plotinus, like the Pythagoreans referring to their own Master, quotes or paraphrases Plato. Where Plato is mentioned by name the name appeeu'S in this translation. It has not been judged necessary to give chapter and verse for the Platonic references since the passages are invariably those which have most entered into controversy or into literary allusion.

Plato is mentioned by name the name appeeu'S in this translation. It has not been judged necessary to give chapter and verse for the Platonic references since the passages are invariably those which have most entered into controversy or into literary allusion.

" Elsewhere ” and similar phrases may puzzle the reader ; it must be remembered that we are reading the treatises in the order not of Plotinus’ writing but of Porphyry’s editing : an allusion or demonstration referred to in this First Ennead may be contained in the Sixth.

[Reference should have been made on page 116 to the monumental work of CuDwoRTH and to Henry More ; both these authors served the translator considerably in his earlier study of Plotinus. ‘‘Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth AND Seventeenth Centuries”; by John Smith Harrison (Columbia University Press, 19^3)) contains a useful study of More’s Psychodia Platonica.]

‘^1

>

* i

\ •

>1’

/'

p. 1

p. 1

GRANDEUR OF THE SOUL

p. 131

Plotinus : V. 2, 2, says that in plants there dwells “ the more rebellious and self-assertive part (or phase) of the soul.”

Primal Differenti.4Tion : — This refers to the Intellectual-Principle (the Divine-Mind) which is said, VI. 9, 5, “ to sunder itself from The One in an act of self-assertion.”

Self-Will ; — Plotinus upholds the Freedom of the Will but denies that Free- Will can consist in the power to effect things mutually contradictory. Thus, VI. 8, 21, ” The greatest power is in keeping nearest to Unity : to be able to effect contradictory acts is weakness ; it is to be unable to hold to the Best.”

He says that Free-Will is shown in right action not in acts done under the driving of the senses : —

III. I, 9. ” Whensoever the soul has been wrested from its own character by the force of the Outer and so acts — rushing in a blind excitement — the act or the state is not to be called an act or state of freedom ; so, too, when in a self-induced corruption it answers to impulses within itself that are not entirely right, not of its highest nature : only when our soul acts by its native pure and independent Reason-Principle can the act be described as ours and as an exercise of Free-Will.”

Plotinus often affirms that the Liberty or Free-Will by which we pursue or accomplish evil is rather the very negation of freedom : —

IV. 8, 5. “ All that descends to a lower state descends against its own Free-Will, but since it has followed an impulse of its own natmre it is said to pay the penalty, which is no other than the very fall itself.

s rather the very negation of freedom : —

IV. 8, 5. “ All that descends to a lower state descends against its own Free-Will, but since it has followed an impulse of its own natmre it is said to pay the penalty, which is no other than the very fall itself. But in the sense that such act and experience was necessary from eternity by a law of nature, then one may say, . . . that this thing, descending from what was above it to the service of something else, was sent down by God.”

On this doctrine of the alienation of the soul from God and the necessity of return by purification, see III. 6, 5 : in a deeper sense he denies that we are really cut off from God : see, later. Extract X., page 148.

II

The Grandeur of the Soul (Human and Divine)

V. I, 2. Before all let every Soul remember that itself is the creator of every living thing, having breathed the life into them : into all that the earth nourishes and the sea ; all that are in the air and all the divine stars in the heavens ; itself has formed the sun and this vast firmament of sky : itself has given them their stately

p. 132

PLOTINUS

ordering and leads them around in their ranks : and it is a Nature apart from all to which it gives the order and the movement and the life, and it must of necessity be more honourable than they ; for they are things whose being has had a beginning, and they perish when the Soul that leads the chorus-dance of life departs, but the Soul itself has ever-being since it cannot suffer change. ... As rays from the sun pour light upon a gloomy cloud and make it shine in a golden glory, so the Soul when it comes to body touches it to life, brings immortality to it, wakes it where it lies prostrate ; and the heavenly-system, taking up its everlasting movement under the leading of the wisdom of the Soul, becomes a blissful living-being, venerable with the Soul that dwells within, a dead body before the Soul came, or rather mere darkness of Matter, Non-Being, “ hated of the gods.”

What the Soul is, and what its power, will be more manifestly, more splendidly, evident, if we think how its counsel comprehends and conducts the heavens, how it communicates itself to all this vast bulk and ensouls it through all its extension, through big and little so that every particle of the great frame, though each has its own need and function and some are closely linked and some far apart, every particle has its own place in Soul.