The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

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).

It is this Multiplicity of difference in the Divine Realm itself that produces Number and Quantity and even Quality which is the specific character of these Principles, the sources of all else that exists.

Notes

“ Blessed-Spirits ” : — These are the Daimones.

" Knowledge immedi.\tely present ” : — Enquiry implies an imperfect mentality and therefore cannot be imputed to the Intellectual-Principle : the Soul has, of itself, only the Reasoning-Intelligence. Thus : —

V. I, 10. “ Our Soul is a Divine Thing, outside of the Realm of Sense as

Soul-Nature must be : it is consummate when it has attached itself to the Intellectual-Principle, which in part is eternally self-wTapped in Intellection but in part is occupied abroad in leading the Soul towards Intellection.” " The higher part of the Soul,” Plotinus continues, “ is ever absorbed in the Divine Mind.”

So also : —

V. I, II. " And if the Soul, though it must sometimes reason towards the Just and the Good, may sometimes know them immediately, there must be within us the Intellectual-Principle which never seeks but eternally knows the Right.”

p. 138

PLOTINUS

All Reasoning belongs to the inferior order : —

IV. 3, i8. “ Does the Soul employ Reasoning before it enters the body and when it has left body, or only while it is here ? Only here, where it knows doubt and care and weakness ; for Intelligence is the less self-sufficing for needing to reason, just as in the crafts or arts reasoning means hesitation in the workman, but when all is plain the craft takes its own masterly way. In the Intellectual Order there is no ratiocination and the man arrived at this degree does not employ it.”

V. 5, I. ” The Intellectual-Principle must ever know and never overlook or forget ; its knowing can never come by way of conjecture, never be doubtful, never depend upon learning from without or upon any proving. This Intellectual- Principle (even in man) has nothing to do with sense-reports ; it contemplates nothing outside of itself.”

” The Intellective Subject and the Object of Intellection ” : — Authentic- Existence and The Divine Mind are customarily named together by Plotinus as one entity : to him there is no real being except what is of the Intellectual and Intelligible order ; —

V. 4, 2.

he Intellective Subject and the Object of Intellection ” : — Authentic- Existence and The Divine Mind are customarily named together by Plotinus as one entity : to him there is no real being except what is of the Intellectual and Intelligible order ; —

V. 4, 2. “ The Intellectual-Principle is Itself the Intelligible — the object of

True-Knowing — and at the same time the Intelligent — the True-Knower. Real- Being and the Intellectual-Principle are identical, for the Divine Mind does not act upon Its object as sensation acts upon material things which must exist apart from the sensation : the Intellectual-Principle actually is all the Existence upon which it exercises its Act.”

So again : —

V. I, 10. ” And in sequence upon The First comes Existence, that is the

Intellectual-Principle. ’ ’

This Existence (or Being) is also called Essence : — e.g. in I. 7, i we read of ” Intelligence and Essence ” where the reference is to the Second Principle, the Emanation directly proceeding from the First, the One.

‘‘ Motion and Rest ” : — Since the Intellectual-Principle is identical with its Act (Intellection) and with its object (Existence) it follows that Motion and Rest must be attributed to it : for ” Intellection is the First Life ” (III. 8, 7) and Life is identical with Act (expressive or functional activity) as we are told more than once. Compare VI. 2, 8. ‘‘ Activity and movement accompany the Intellection in the Divine Mind : in Its Self-Intellection is the foundation of Essence and Being : It exists while it thinks and it knows both itself and its objects as possessing Being . . . and Being is the absolutely unmoving, the very base in which all that is most motionless is founded.”

ACT IN THE SUPREME AND IN MAN

p. 139

Often, however, aJl motion is limited to the Soul, rest being given as the characteristic of the Intellectual-Principle : —

II. 9, I. “ The Divine Mind remains true to its own Being, ever in the one state, unmoving in its stable Act : all movement around It, as towards It, begins with Soul.”

IV. 4, 16. ” Making The Good the centre, the Intellectual-Principle will be a motionless circle and the Soul a circle in motion, moved by its aspiration inwards : for the Intellectual-Principle contains The Good immediately, and the Soul must strive towards it.

The Intellectual-Principle rests ever in Itself, contemplates nothing else (except The First) never moves elsewhere and is therefore not an agent (praktikos).”

V. 3, 6.

the Intellectual-Principle contains The Good immediately, and the Soul must strive towards it.

The Intellectual-Principle rests ever in Itself, contemplates nothing else (except The First) never moves elsewhere and is therefore not an agent (praktikos).”

V. 3, 6. ” This principle is not an agent under need of acquiring knowledge of the outer, as for instance a man must, w'hen he goes out from himself into the business of life.”

The Soul does not of its own right and nature possess this Intellectual-Principle which merely takes possession if the Soul turns towards It : —

V. 6, 4. " The Soul possesses the Intellectual-Principle as something added to it : Intellection belongs essentially to the Intellectual-Principle.”

The Soul therefore has external action when it builds the Kosmos : —

IV. 8, 3. “ The Intellective Soul has Intellection for its Act, but not Intellection unalloyed : if it had, it would be identical with its prior. To its nature as an Intellective it adds another Act which constitutes its characteristic ” person ” (hypostasis) and so it becomes something distinct from the Intellectual-Principle. The Soul too has its fimction, as every member of the Divine must ; looking towards its prior, it has Intellection ; looking to itself, it preserves its own essence ; looking to what comes after it, to what it orders and conducts, it rules the lower world.”

Still, on deeper examination, it is discovered that all action subserves thought and is performed for purposes of contemplation : —

III. 8, 5. ” All action is in view of contemplation . . . what we have not the will-power to get by the direct way we seek by the round. When we acquire what our action sought, achieve what we proposed, what is it for ? Not to be ignored but to be known, to be seen ; we act for the sake of some satisfaction we desire, and this not that it may remain outside the bound of our possessions but that it may be ours. This means that it be . . . where ? WTiere but in the mind ? Thus all act circles back to thought, for what the act lays up in the soul, which is a Reason-Principle, can be nothing else than a Reason-Form, a silent thought (a thought not marred by the noise of action).”

p. 140

PLOTINUS

Even the very Kosmos, shaped or created by the Soul, is itself a “ Contemplation ” (or, as we might say, a Mentation, an intellectual activity).

p. 4