The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

be reasonable to recognise succession in the case of the Soulless Movement — and so to associate Time with that — while ignoring succession and the reality of Time in the Movement from which the other takes its imitative existence ; to ignore, that is, the very Movement in which succession first appears, a self-actuated movement which, engendering its own every operation, is the source of all that follows upon itself, to all which, it is the cause of existence, at once, and of every consequent.

But : — we treat the Kosmic Movement as overarched by that of the Soul and bring it under Time ; yet we do not set under Time that Soul-Movement itself with all its endless progression : what is our explanation of this paradox ?

Simply, that the Soul-Movement has for its Prior (not Time but) Eternity which knows neither its progression nor its extension. The descent towards Time begins with this Soul-Movement ; it made Time and harbours Time as a concomitant to its Act.

And this is how Time is omnipresent : that Soul is absent from no fragment of the Kosmos just as our Soul is absent from no particle of ourselves. As for those who pronounce Time a thing of no substantial existence, of no reality, they clearly belie God Himself whenever they say “ He was ” or “ He will be ” ; for the existence indicated by the “ was and will be ” can have only such reality as belongs to that in which it is said to be situated : — but this school demands another style of argument.

Meanwhile we have a supplementary observation to make.

Take a man walking and observe the advance he has made ; that advance gives you the quantity of movement he is employing : and

III. 8. 1] NATURE CONTEMPLATION AND THE ONEp. 119 when you know that quantity— represented by the ground traversed by his feet, for, of course, we are supposing the bodily movement to correspond with the pace he has set within himself — you know also the movement that exists in the man himself before the feet move.

You must relate the body, carried forward during a given period of Time, to a certain quantity of Movement causing the progress and to the Time it takes, and that again to the Movement, equal in extension, within the man’s soul.

But the Movement within the Soul — to what are you to (relate) refer that ?

Let your choice fall where it may, from this point there is nothing but the unextended : and this is the primarily existent, the container to all else, having itself no container, brooking none.

And, as with Man’s Soul, so with the Soul of the All.

that ?

Let your choice fall where it may, from this point there is nothing but the unextended : and this is the primarily existent, the container to all else, having itself no container, brooking none.

And, as with Man’s Soul, so with the Soul of the All.

“ Is Time, then, within ourselves as well ? ”

Time is in every Soul of the order of the All-Soul, present in like form in all ; for all the Souls are the one Soul.

And this is why Time can never be broken apart, any more than Eternity which, similarly, under diverse manifestations, has its Being as an integral constituent of all the eternal Existences.

EIGHTH TRACTATE
Nature Contemplation and the One

I.

Supposing we played a little before entering upon our serious concern and maintained that all things are striving after Contemplation, looking to Vision as their one end — and this, not merely beings endowed with reason but even the unreasoning animals, the Principle that rules in growing things, and the Earth that produces these — and that all achieve their purpose in the measure possible to their kind, each attaining Vision and possessing itself of the End in its own way and degree, some things in entire reality, others in mimicry and in image — we would scarcely find

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PLOTINUS

anyone to endure so strange a thesis. But in a discussion entirely among ourselves there is no risk in a light handling of our own ideas.

Well — in the play of this very moment am I engaged in the act of
Contemplation ?

Yes ; I and all that enter this play are in Contemplation : our play aims at Vision ; and there is every reason to believe that child or man, in sport or earnest, is playing or working only towards Vision, that every act is an effort towards Vision ; the compulsory act, which tends rather to bring the Vision down to outward things, and the act thought of as voluntary, less concerned with the outer, originate alike in the effort towards Vision.

The case of Man will be treated later on : let us speak, first, of the earth and of the trees and vegetation in general, asking ourselves what is the nature of Contemplation in them, how we relate to any Contemplative activity the labour and productiveness of the earth, how Nature, held to be devoid of reason and even of conscious representation, can either harbour Contemplation or produce by means of the Contemplation which it does not possess.

2.

relate to any Contemplative activity the labour and productiveness of the earth, how Nature, held to be devoid of reason and even of conscious representation, can either harbour Contemplation or produce by means of the Contemplation which it does not possess.

2.

There is, obviously, no question here of hands or feet, of any implement borrowed or inherent : Nature needs simply the Matter which it is to work upon and bring under Form ; its productivity cannot depend upon mechanical operation. What driving or hoisting goes to produce all that variety of colour and pattern ?

The wax-workers, whose methods have been cited as parallel to the creative act of Nature, are unable to make colours ; all they can do is to impose upon their handicraft colours taken from elsewhere. None the less there is a parallel which demands attention : in the case of workers in such arts there must be something locked up within themselves, an efficacy not going out from them and yet guiding their hands in all their creation ; and this observation should have indicated a similar phenomenon in Nature ; it should be clear that this indwelling efiicacy, which makes without hands, must exist in Nature, no less than in the craftsman —

in. 8. 3] NATURE CONTEMPLATION AND THE ONE

I2I

but, there, as a thing completely inbound. Nature need possess no outgomg force as against that remaining within ; the only moved thing is Matter ; there can be no moved phase in this Nature-Principle ; any such moved phase could not be the primal mover ; this Nature-Principle is no such moved entity ; it is the unmoved Principle operating in the Kosmos.

We may be answered that the Reason-Principle is, no doubt, unmoved, but that the Nature-Principle, another being, operates by motion.

But, if Nature entire is m question here, it is identical with the Reason- Principle ; and any part of it that is unmoved is the Reason- Principle. The Nature- Principle must be an Ideal-Form, not a compound of Form and Matter ; there is no need for it to possess (such a changeable element as) Matter, hot and cold : the Matter that underlies it, on which it exercises its creative act, brings all that with it, or, natively without quality, becomes hot and cold, and all the rest, when brought under Reason : Matter, to become fire, demands the approach not of fire but of a Reason-Principle.