The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

lse 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).

III. 8, 4. " Treating of Nature we said that all engendering was a Contemplation : we come now to the Soul which is prior to Nature and say that by the Soul’s Contemplation — its zest for knowledge, its desire for experience, the birth-pangs induced in it by what it knows, its teeming plenty — the Soul, itself a Contemplation entire, has begotten another Contemplation ... a weaker than itself.”

V

The Beginning of Multiplicity

V. I, 5. This God (The Intellectual-Principle), already a Being of Multiplicity, is present in the soul. . . . But what is the God that has thus engendered ; what is the Simplex, existing before all such Multiplicity, the source at once of its existence and of its Multiplicity, the source of Number itself ? For Number is not primal ; before the Two, there is the One (n) and the Unit must precede the Dyad : coming later than the One, the Dyad has the One as the standard of its differentiation, that without which it could not be the separate differentiated thing it is. And as soon as there is differentiation, number exists.

Notes

The need for a Principle above the Intellectual-Principle is established by the consideration that Divine Mind is, and contains, a Multiplicity : it is both Intellection and Existence and includes the Multiplicity of the Divine Thoughts, the Ideas ; its Multiplicity demands a Unity to include or contain it.

III. 8, 8. ” The Intellectual-Principle, thus, contains the Multiple : therefore it is not the First : there must be a Principle transcending t. . . . Multiplicity is subsequent to Unity and the Intellectual-Principle is number : the Source of this number is the One ; Divine Mind, as being both the Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual-Kosmos is twofold : as long as we have duality, we must go still higher until we reach what transcends the Dyad.”

From this it follows that nothing can be attributed to The One but what is purely Itself : if It possessed or included anything other than Itself, the One would be, again, a Multiplicity : —

V. 4, I.

go still higher until we reach what transcends the Dyad.”

From this it follows that nothing can be attributed to The One but what is purely Itself : if It possessed or included anything other than Itself, the One would be, again, a Multiplicity : —

V. 4, I. ” Standing transcendent above all things that follow It, existing in Itself, not mixing or to be mixed with any emanation from Itself, veritably The One, not merely possessing Oneness as an attribute of Its essence — for that would

THE ALL-TRANSCENDING UNITY

p. 141

be a false Oneness — a Principle overpassing all reasoning, all knowing ... a Principle standing over all Essence and Existence . . . only when it is simplex and First, apart from all, can It be perfectly self-sufficing : a non-primal needs its prior and a non-simplex demands the simplex which is its source.”

VI. 9, 6. ” All that is multiple, and not One, is needy ; made up of many elements, it craves the Unity ; the Unity itself cannot crave the Unity which it is.”

Another consideration is that unless there were a Unity there could be nothing else : things are by the virtue of a Unity : —

VI. 9, I. " All beings exist by the One — and this whether their being is primal or merely partial. . . . Take away their Unity and they lose their Being.” Plotinus goes on to instance an army, a choir, a herd, a house, a ship, planets, animals, a man : a principle of Unity makes them what they are, and this principle in them is an image, a distant reflection, of the Unity that is the essence of the all-transcending One.”

Still, in a certain mode. Multiplicity may be affirmed of The One — in that it possesses infinite power : —

VI. 9, 6. “ The One must be taken to be infinite not in the sense of some mass or number never to be measured or traversed, but in the sense of inconceivable power.” And see, later, on Extract VII, page 144.

VI

The Absolute Transcendence of The One

VI. 9, 3. Since the Nature or Hypostasis of The One is the engenderer of the All, It can Itself be none of the things in the All ; that is It is not a thing ; it does not possess quality or quantity ; It is not an Intellectual-Principle, not a Soul ; It is not in motion and not at rest ; not in space, not in time ; It is essentially of a unique form or rather of no-form, since it is prior to form as It is prior to movement and to rest : all these categories hold only in the realm of Existence and constitute the Multiplicity characteristic of that lower realm.

Note

The One can be indicated only in negations : —

VI. 8, II.

since it is prior to form as It is prior to movement and to rest : all these categories hold only in the realm of Existence and constitute the Multiplicity characteristic of that lower realm.

Note

The One can be indicated only in negations : —

VI. 8, II. ” How can we make such a statement about It, seeing that all else we say of it is said by negation ? ”

No attribute can be affirmed of It : we penetrate to It only by mystic contemplation, the senses sealed : —

See I. 6, 8. Page 88 of this work.

p. 142

PLOTINUS

The One is without thought but also without ignorance ; —

VI. g, 6. " That It neither knows nor has Intellection of Itself does not constitute any ignorance in It. Ignorance implies something outside the ignorer . . . but what stands absolutely alone neither knows anything nor has anything to ignore ; being one and always present to itself it has no need of self-knowing ; in fact, even that self-presence ought not to be attributed to It if we are to preserve Its unity ; we must rule out all knowing and all consciousness whether of Itself or of aught else ; we must conceive It not as having Intellection but as being the object of Intellection (object to the knowing of the Divine Mind).

Hence it follows that The One is not intelligible in Itself but only to the Divine Intellectual-Principle : —

V, 6, 2. “ In regard to the Intellectual-Principle The One will be Intelligible, an object of true-knowing, but within Itself It will strictly neither possess Intellection nor be the object of Intellection.”

The One does not even possess will ; if Plotinus, after Plato, names It The Good, even this must be understood in a modified sense : —

VI. 9, 6. ” All that can be said to lack or desire, lacks or desires the Good that will complete it : The One, therefore, can experience no Good nor any will to Good ; It is the Beyond-Good, or It is good, not in regard to Itself, but in regard to the lower that is capable of partaking in it.”

Similarly if It is called the Source and the Cause, this is not a definition of The One as It is in Itself but the statement of a relation in which the lower stands to It : —

VI. 8, 8. “ All things, however exalted, august, are later than This : It is the source of all, though in some sense It is no source : we must keep all things apart from It . . . even freedom of action. ... It can enter into no relation with the realm of Existence.”

VI. g, 3.