The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

Love is of mixed quality. On the one hand there is in it the lack which keeps it craving : on the other, it is not entirely destitute ; the deficient seeks more of what it has, and certainly nothing absolutely void of good would ever go seeking the good.

It is said then to spring from Poverty and Possession in the sense that Lack and Aspiration and the Memory of the Ideal Principles, all present together in the Soul, produce that Act towards The Good which is Love. Its Mother is Poverty, since striving is for the needy ; and this Poverty is Matter, for Matter is the whoUy poor : the very ambition towards the good is a sign of existing indetermination ; there is a lack of shape and of Reason in that which must aspire towards the Good,

III. 6.1] the impassivity of the unembodiedp. 67 and the greater degree of effort implies the lower depth of materiality. A thing aspiring towards the Good is an Ideal-principle only when the striving (with attainment) will leave it still unchanged in Kind : when it must take in something other than itself, its aspiration is the presentment of Matter to the incoming power.

Thus Love is at once, in some degree a thing of Matter and at the same time a Celestial, sprung of the Soul ; for Love lacks its Good but, from its very birth, strives towards It.

SIXTH TRACTATE
The Impassivity of the Unembodied

I.

In our theory, feelings are not states ; they are action upon experience, action accompanied by judgment : the states, we hold, are seated elsewhere ; they may be referred to the vitalised body ; the judgment resides in the Soul, and is distinct from the state — for, if it is not distinct, another judgment is demanded, one that is distinct, and, so, we may be sent back for ever.

Still, this leaves it undecided whether in the act of judgment the judging faculty does or does not take to itself something of its object.

If (as is sometimes asserted) the judging faculty does actually receive an imprint, then it partakes of the state — though what are called the Impressions may be of quite another nature than is supposed ; they may be like Thought, that is to say they may be acts rather than states ; there may be, here too, awareness without participation.

For ourselves, it could never be in our system — or in our liking — to bring the Soul down to participation in such modes and modifications as the warmth and cold of material frames.

rather than states ; there may be, here too, awareness without participation.

For ourselves, it could never be in our system — or in our liking — to bring the Soul down to participation in such modes and modifications as the warmth and cold of material frames.

What is known as the Impressionable faculty of the soul — to pathetikon — would need to be identified : we must satisfy ourselves as to whether this too, like the Soul as a unity, is to be classed as immirne or, on the contrary, as precisely the only part susceptible of being affected ;

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PLOTINUS

this question, however, may be held over ; we proceed to examine its preliminaries.

Even in the superior phase of the Soul — that which precedes the impressionable faculty and any sensation — how can we reconcile immunity with the indwelling of vice, false notions, ignorance ? Inviolability ; and yet likings and dislikings, the Soul enjoying, grieving, angry, grudging, envying, desiring, never at peace but stirring and shifting with everything that confronts it !

If the Soul were material and had magnitude, it would be difficult, indeed quite impossible, to make it appear to be immune, unchangeable, when any of such emotions lodge in it. And even considering it as an Authentic Being, devoid of magnitude and necessarily indestructible, we must be very careful how we attribute any such experiences to it or we will find ourselves unconsciously making it subject to dissolution. If its essence is a Number or as we hold a Reason-Principle, under neither head could it be susceptible of feeling. We can think, only, that it entertains imreasoned reasons and experiences unexperienced, all transmuted from the material frames, foreign and recognised only by parallel, so that it possesses in a kind of non-possession and knows affection without being affected. How this can be demands enquiry.

2.

Let us begin with virtue and vice in the Soul. What has really occurred when, as we say, vice is present ? In speaking of extirpating evil and implanting goodness, of introducing order and beauty to replace a former ugliness, we talk in terms of real things in the Soul.

Now when we make virtue a harmony, and vice a breach of harmony, we accept an opinion approved by the ancients ; and the theory helps us decidedly to our solution.

ng order and beauty to replace a former ugliness, we talk in terms of real things in the Soul.

Now when we make virtue a harmony, and vice a breach of harmony, we accept an opinion approved by the ancients ; and the theory helps us decidedly to our solution. For if virtue is simply a natural concordance among the phases of the Soul, and vice simply a discord, then there is no further question of any foreign presence ; harmony would be the result of every distinct phase or faculty joining in, true to itself ; discord would mean that not all chimed in at their best and truest. Consider, for example, the performers in a choral dance ; they sing together

111.6.2] the impassivity of the unembodiedp. 69 though each one has his particular part, and sometimes one voice is heard while the others are silent ; and each brings to the chorus something of his own ; it is not enough that all lift their voices together ; each must sing, choicely, his own part to the music set for him. Exactly so in the case of the Soul ; there will be harmony when each faculty performs its appropriate part.

Yes : but this very harmony constituting the virtue of the Soul must depend upon a previous virtue, that of each several faculty within itself ; and before there can be the vice of discord there must be the vice of the single parts, and these can be bad only by the actual presence of vice as they can be good only by the presence of virtue. It is true that no presence is affirmed when vice is identified with ignorance in the reasoning faculty of the Soul ; ignorance is not a positive thing ; but in the presence of false judgments — the main cause of vice — must it not be admitted that something positive has entered into the Soul, something perverting the reasoning faculty ? So, the initiative faculty ; is it not, itself, altered as one varies between timidity and boldness ? And the desiring faculty, similarly, as it runs wild or accepts control ?

Our teaching is that when the particular faculty is sound it performs the reasonable act of its essential nature, obeying the reasoning faculty in it which derives from the Intellectual Principle and communicates to the rest. And this following of reason is not the acceptance of an imposed shape ; it is like using the eyes ; the Soul sees by its act, that of looking towards reason.