The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

E MIND

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Notes

" Springing from the Intellectual-Principle ” : — Many metaphors are used to indicate how the universe rises from its principles — cast down like light from the sun, flowing forth like water from a well, branching out like a tree from the root. That from which the Emanation takes place remains ever complete, undiminished : —

III. 8, g. “ Imagine a spring which has no commencement, giving itself to all the rivers, never exhausted by what they take, ever tranquilly its full self.”

Such is the exuberance of the First that it gives forth its Emanations without premeditation.

V. 2, I. “ The One is not a Being but the source of Being which is its first offspring. The One is perfect, that is it has nothing, seeks nothing, needs nothing, but, as we may say, it overflows, and this overflowing is creative : the engendered entity . . . looks towards the One and becomes The Intellectual-Principle ; resting within itself, this offspring of the One is Being.”

No idea of time or of any motion or change may be admitted in reference to this Generative Act : —

V. I, 6. Far from our thought be any generation in time when we treat of the Ever-Existents. ... Nor may we attribute action to the Generator. If there were action this very action would have to be counted among the Divine Principles and the engendered Hypostasis (The Intellectual-Principle) would be a Third, not a Second. The First is immobile ; any second must spring from it without any assent in It, apart from Its will, without any movement in It. . . . And all things that have Being, as long as that Being inheres to them, must by the virtue that is in them, give forth from their essence an hypostasis belonging to them but going forth to the outer while still closely linked to them, an image, as it were, of this original and archetype : fire thus gives forth its heat ; snow does not keep its inner cold to itself ; perfumes, too, may serve in illustration ; as long as they exist they spread abroad something of themselves to the pleasure of all that are near.

All that has reached its perfection produces ; The Eternally Perfect produces an eternal product, though a product of less perfection than Itself.

” Matter to the Intellectual-Principle ” : — The Intelligible (or Intellectual) - Matter in the Divine Mind is explained in —

II. 4, 4.

ched its perfection produces ; The Eternally Perfect produces an eternal product, though a product of less perfection than Itself.

” Matter to the Intellectual-Principle ” : — The Intelligible (or Intellectual) - Matter in the Divine Mind is explained in —

II. 4, 4. ” If, then, the Divine Thought-Forms (The Ideas) are many, there must of necessity be something common to all and something peculiar to each to differentiate them : this particularity or specific difference is the individual shape ; but if there is shape there must be something that has taken the shape . . . that is to say there is a foundation, substratum, a Matter. Further, if there is an Intel-

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PLOTINUS

lectual Kosmos of which our Kosmos is an image, and if ours is compound and includes Matter, there must be a Matter in the Intellectual Kosmos as well.

IV

The Intellectual Principle and the Intellectual-realm in Relation

TO THE One

V. I, 4. If anything more is needed to establish the magnificence of Divine- Mind, look, with awe, to this sense-known Universe ; consider its vastness, and its beauty and the harmony of its eternal course, the Gods within it, the seen Gods and the unseen, and the blessed spirits (n) and all the life of animal and plant. Then ascend to its Original, to its more authentic form, and There contemplate all the Intellectual Host, immortal by their own indwelling right, in the plenitude of their own conscious life ; see, presiding above these, the immaculate Divine-Mind ; consider that fathomless Wisdom, that veritable Saturnian Age, age of Kronos, who is Son of God and is the Intellect of the Divinity, embracing all the immortal orders — all Intelligence, every God, every soul — in His calm eternal Identity. Eternally identical this Principle must be, for what change or “ otherness ” could be sought There where all is well ? Whither could that Being move outside Itself, having all within Itself ? What increase (and, therefore, diversity) could The Most Perfect desire ? In Him, in all ways consummate, all things are consummate ; of all that He has, all is perfect : and of all that is within His being, all is perfect : of all that is His there is nothing that He does not know — knowing by a knowledge that is never sought but always immediately present (n) ; and His blessedness is nothing from without but exists, all, in the one Eternity, exists to the Divine Mind which is Itself the veritable Eternity mimicked by that Soul-circling movement of Time which is ever flinging aside the outworn and clutching at the new.

nd His blessedness is nothing from without but exists, all, in the one Eternity, exists to the Divine Mind which is Itself the veritable Eternity mimicked by that Soul-circling movement of Time which is ever flinging aside the outworn and clutching at the new.

The Soul (principle of movement and author of Time) is occupied always with consecutive things — always with some single object, now Socrates, and now a horse — but Divine Mind knows aU as one. Within this all things are contained at rest in Unity ; it alone has Authentic Existence and Its “ I am ” is for ever : nowhere is there any future to It ; already It is all Its infinity ; nowhere any past for nothing There can pass, but, as all is True-Being There, so all holds steadfast always, all things in the divine finding joy in their state. Each Being of all that are There is Divine Mind, is Authentic Existence ; and their entirety constitutes Divine Mind entire and Authentic Existence entire. This Divine Mind, through Its Act, Its Intellection, becomes Existence ; and Existence, in that it is the object of the Intellection, brings to Divine Mind both Intellection and Existence.

REASONING AND INTUITION

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The First Cause of the Intellectual-Principle is another Principle which is the Cause also of Existence ; this Cause, distinct from either, is common to them since they have their substantial existence together, never deserting each other ; so that, while they are two, they yet constitute a Unity, w'hich Unity is at once Intellection and Existence, Thinker and Thought — the Intellectual-Principle being the Intellective Subject while Existence is the object of the Intellection (n). For the Intellection could not take place if this Intellectual Kosmos did not contain, at once, identity and difference.

Thus the Primals are Intellection (=The Intellectual-Principle) Existence, Differentiation and Identity. To these must also be added Motion and Rest (n) — Motion corresponding to the Act of Intellection, Rest to the unbroken Identity. Differentiation is implied by there being a Thinker and a Thought (an Intellectual- Principle and an object of Intellection) : if this difference did not e.xist, all would be a silent Oneness.

There must also be a difference among the Divine Thoughts (The Ideas) — with, yet, identity since the Intellectual-Principle is one in itself, a common principle to all : this Difference is that the Ideas are distinct (i.e. it is not a difference of essential nature).