The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna
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ping to the World, discusses the philosophical implications of some of its features : —
1. On Fate.
2. The First Treatise on Providence.
3. The Second Treatise on Providence.
4. On Our Tutelary Spirit.
5. On Love.
6. On the Impassibility of the Bodiless.
7. On Eternity and Time.
8. On Nature, Contemplation and The One.
9. Various Questions.
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These first three Enneads constitute in my arrangement one self-contained section.
The treatise on Our Tutelary Spirit is placed in the Third Ennead because this Spirit is not discussed as it is in itself, and the essay by its main content falls into the class dealing with the origin of man. Similar reasons determined the inclusion in this set of the treatise on Love. That on Time and Eternity is placed in this Third Ennead in virtue of its treatment of Time : that On Nature, Contemplation and The One, because of the discussion of Nature contained in it.
Next to the two dealing with the world comes the Fourth Ennead containing the treatises dealing with the Soul : —
1. On the Essence of the Soul (L).
2. On the Essence of the Soul (II.).
3. Questions referring to the Soul (L).
PORPHYRY
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4. Questions referring to the Soul (II.).
5. Questions referring to the Soul (III.) ; or, On Vision.
6. On Sensation and Memory.
7. On the Immortality of the Soul.
8. On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies.
9. Whether all Souls are One.
The Fifth Ennead — following upon that dealing with the Soul — contains the treatises upon the Intellectual-Principle, each of which has also some reference to the All-Transcending and to the Intellectual- Principle in the Soul, and to the Ideas : —
1. On the three Primal Hypostases.
2. On the Origin and Order of the Post-Primals.
3. On the Conscious Hypostases and the All-Transcending.
4. How the Post-Primal derives from the Primal, and On the One.
5. That the Intelligibles are not outside the Intellectual-Principle and on the Good.
6. That there is no Intellectual Act in the Principle which transcends the Authentic -Existent ; and On the Nature that has the Intellectual Act Primally and that which has it Secondarily.
7. Whether there are Ideas even of Particulars.
8. On Intellectual Beauty.
9. On the Intellectual-Principle, on the Ideas and on the Authentic- Existent.
26.
These Fourth and Fifth Enneads, again, I have arranged in the form of one distinct section.
The Last Ennead, the Sixth, constitutes one other section, so that we have the entire work of Plotinus in three sections, the first containing three Enneads, the second two, the third one Ennead.
ads, again, I have arranged in the form of one distinct section.
The Last Ennead, the Sixth, constitutes one other section, so that we have the entire work of Plotinus in three sections, the first containing three Enneads, the second two, the third one Ennead.
The content of the third section, that is of the Sixth Ennead, is as follows : —
I, 2, 3. On the Kinds of the Authentic-Existent.
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PLOTINUS
4, 5. That the Authentic-Existent, one and identical, is everywhere present, integrally.
6. On Numbers.
7. How the Multitude of Ideas Exists ; and On the Good.
8. On Free-Will and the Will of The One.
9. On The Good, or The One.
Thus, in sum, I have arranged the fifty-four treatises, constituting Plotinus’ entire work, into six sets of nine ; to some of the treatises I have further added commentaries — irregularly, as friends asked for enlightenment on this or that point — finally for all the treatises, except that on Beauty, which was not to hand, I have written Summaries which follow the chronological order : in this department of my work besides the Summaries will be found Developments ; the numbering of these also adopts the chronological order.
Now I have only to go once more through the entire work, see to the punctuation and correct any verbal errors ; what else has solicited my attention, the reader will discover for himself.
THE FIRST ENNEAD
FIRST TRACTATE
The Animate and the Man
1.
Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat ?
Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body,, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes : it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending.
And what applies to the affections applies also to whatsoever acts, physical or mental, spring from them.
We have, therefore, to examine discursive-reason and the ordinary mental action upon objects of sense, and enquire whether these have the one seat with the affections and experiences, or perhaps sometimes the one seat, sometimes another.
And we must consider also our acts of Intellection, their mode and their seat.
And this very examining principle, which investigates and decides in these matters, must be brought to light.
Firstly, what is the seat of Sense-Perception ? This is the obvious beginning since the affections and experiences either are sensations of some kind or at least never occur apart from sensation.
2.
igates and decides in these matters, must be brought to light.
Firstly, what is the seat of Sense-Perception ? This is the obvious beginning since the affections and experiences either are sensations of some kind or at least never occur apart from sensation.
2.
This first enquiry obhges us to consider at the outset the nature of the Soul — that is whether a distinction is to be made between Soul and Essential Soul (between an individual Soul and the Soul-Kind in itself).
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p. 30
PLOTINUS
If such a distinction holds, then the Soul (in man) is some sort of a composite and at once we may agree that it is a recipient and — if only reason allows — that all the affections and experiences really have their seat in the Soul, and with the affections every state and mood, good and bad alike.
But if Soul (in man) and Essential Soul are one and the same, then the Soul will be an Ideal-Form unreceptive of all those activities which it imparts to another Kind but possessing within itself that native Act of its own which Reason manifests.
If this be so, then, indeed, we may think of the Soul as an immortal — if the immortal, the imperishable, must be impassive, giving out something of itself but itself taking nothing from without except for what it receives from the Existents prior to itself from which Existents, in that they are the nobler, it cannot be sundered.
Now what could bring fear to a nature thus unreceptive of all the outer ? Fear demands feeling. Nor is there place for courage : courage implies the presence of danger. And such desires as are satisfied by the filling or voiding of the body, must be proper to something very difierent from the Soul, to that only which admits of replenishment and voidance.
And how could the Soul lend itself to any admixture ? An essential is not mixed. Or of the intrusion of anything ahen ? If it did, it would be seeking the destruction of its own nature. Pain must be equally far from it. And Grief — how or for what could it grieve ? Whatever possesses Existence is supremely free, dwelling, unchangeable, within its own peculiar nature. And can any increase bring joy, where nothing, not even anything good, can accrue ? What such an Existent is, it is unchangeably.
Thus assuredly Sense-Perception, Discursive-Reasoning and all our ordinary mentation are foreign to the Soul : for sensation is a receiving — whether of an Ideal-Form or of an impassive body — and reasoning and all ordinary mental action deal with sensation.