The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

interplay of members of one living being ; each in its own place and way moves as its own nature demands ; to every organ its grade and task, and to every grade and task its effective organ.

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And since the higher exists, there must be the lower as well. The Universe is a thing of variety, and how could there be an inferior ni.3-7]

PROVIDENCE

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without a superior or a superior without an inferior ? We cannot complain about the lower in the higher ; rather, we must be grateful to the higher for giving something of itself to the lower.

In a word, those that would like evil driven out from the All would drive out Providence itself.

What would Providence have to provide for ? Certainly not for itself or for the Good : when we speak of a Providence above, we mean an act upon something below.

That which resumes all under a unity is a Principle in which all things exist together and the single thing is All. From this Principle, which remains internally unmoved, particular things push forth as from a single root which never itself emerges. They are a branching into part, into multiplicity, each single outgrowth bearing its trace of the common source. Thus, phase by phase, there is finally the production into this world ; some things close still to the root, others widely separate in the continuous progression until we have, in our metaphor, bough and crest, foliage and fruit. At the one side all is one point of unbroken rest, on the other is the ceaseless process, leaf and fruit, all the things of process carrying ever within themselves the Reason-Principles of the Upper Sphere, and striving to become trees in their own minor order and producing, if at all, only what is in strict gradation from themselves.

As for the abandoned spaces in what corresponds to the branches these too draw upon the root, from which, despite all their variance, they also derive ; and the branches again operate upon their own furthest extremities : operation is to be traced only from point to next point, but, in the fact, there has been both inflow and outgo (of creative or modifying force) at the very root which, itself again, has its priors.

The things that act upon each other are branchings from a far-off beginning and so stand distinct ; but they derive initially from the one source : all interaction is like that of brothers, resemblant as drawing life from the same parents.

p. 46

PLOTINUS

FOURTH TRACTATE
Our Tutelary Spirit

1.

other are branchings from a far-off beginning and so stand distinct ; but they derive initially from the one source : all interaction is like that of brothers, resemblant as drawing life from the same parents.

p. 46

PLOTINUS

FOURTH TRACTATE
Our Tutelary Spirit

1.

Some Existents (Absolute Unity and Intellectual-Principle) remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed- Idea, come into being ; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty — that in any of its expression-forms — Nature and all forms of hfe down to the vegetable order. Even as it is present in human beings the Soul carries its Expression-form (H>’postasis) with it, but is not the dominant since it is not the whole man (humanity including the Intellectual Principle, as well) : in the vegetable order it is the highest since there is nothing to rival it ; but at this phase it is no longer reproductive, or, at least, what it produces is of quite another order ; here life ceases ; all later production is lifeless.

What does this imply ?

Ever3Tthing the Soul engenders down to this point (of sheer lifelessness) comes into being shapeless, and takes form by orientation towards its author and supporter : therefore (and even more certainly) the thing engendered on the further side can be no image of the Soul, since it is not even alive ; it must be an utter Indetermination. No doubt even in things of the nearer order there was indetermination, but within a form ; they were undetermined not utterly but only in contrast with their perfect state : at this extreme point we have the utter lack of determination. Let it be raised to its highest degree and it becomes body by taking such shape as serves its scope ; then it becomes the recipient of its author and sustainer : this presence in body is the only example of the boundaries of Higher Existents running into the boundary of the Lower,

2.

It is of this Soul especially that we read “ All Soul has care for the Soulless ” — though the several Souls thus care in their own degree and

III. 4. 2]

OUR TUTELARY SPIRIT

p. 47

way. The passage continues — “ Soul passes through the entire heavens in forms varying with the variety of place” — the sensitive form, the reasoning form, even the vegetative form — and this means that in each ” place ” the phase of the soul there dominant carries out its own ends while the rest, not present there, is idle.

vens in forms varying with the variety of place” — the sensitive form, the reasoning form, even the vegetative form — and this means that in each ” place ” the phase of the soul there dominant carries out its own ends while the rest, not present there, is idle.

Now, in humanity the lower is not supreme ; it is an accompaniment; but neither does the better rule unfailingly ; the lower element also has a footing, and Man, therefore, lives in part under sensation, for he has the organs of sensation, and in large part even by the merely vegetative principle, for the body grows and propagates : all the graded phases are in a collaboration, but the entire form, man, takes rank by the dominant, and when the life-principle leaves the body it is what it is, what it most intensely lived.

This is why we must break away towards the High : we dare not keep ourselves set towards the sensuous principle, following the images of sense, or towards the merely vegetative, intent upon the gratifications of eating and procreation ; our life must be pointed towards the Intellective, towards the Intellectual-Principle, towards God.

Those that have maintained the human level are men once more. Those that have lived whoUy to sense become animals — corresponding in species to the particular temper of the life — ferocious animals where the sensuality has been accompanied by a certain measure of spirit, gluttonous and lascivious animals where aU has been appetite and satiation of appetite. Those who in their pleasures have not even lived by sensation, but have gone their way in a torpid grossness become mere growing things, for this lethargy is the entire act of the vegetative, and such men have been busy be-treeing themselves. Those, we read, that, otherwise untainted, have loved song become vocal animals ; kings ruling unreasonably but with no other vice are eagles ; futile and flighty visionaries ever soaring skyward, become high-flying birds ; observance of civic and secular virtue makes man again, or where the merit is less marked, one of the animals of communal tendency, a bee or the like.

p. 48

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PLOTINUS

What, then, is the spirit (guiding the present life and determining the future ?)

The Spirit of here and now.

And the God ?

The God of here and now.

Spirit, God ; This in act within us, conducts every life ; for, even here and now, it is the dominant of our Nature.