The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

e are always brought back to The One.

Every particular thing has a One of its own to which it may be traced ; the AU has its One, its Prior but not yet the Absolute One ; through this we reach that Absolute One, where all such reference comes to an end.

Now when we reach a One — the stationary Principle — in the tree, in the animal, in Soul, in the All — we have in every case the most powerful, the precious element : when we come to the One in the Authentically Existent Beings — their Principle and source and potentiality — shall we lose confidence and suspect it of being — nothing ?

Certainly this Absolute is none of the things of which it is the source — its nature is that nothing can be affirmed of it — not existence, not essence, not life — since it is That which transcends all these. But possess yourself of it by the very elimination of Being and you hold a marvel. Thrusting forward to This, attaining, and resting in its content, seek to grasp it more and more — understanding it by that intuitive thrust alone, but knowing its greatness by the Beings that follow upon it and exist by its power.

Another approach : —

The Intellectual-Principle is a Seeing, and a Seeing which itself sees ; therefore it is a potentiality which has become effective.

This implies the distinction of Matter and Form in it — as there must be in all actual seeing — the Matter in this case being the Intelligibles which the Intellectual-Principle contains and sees. All actual seeing implies duality ; before the seeing takes place there is the pure unity (of the power of seeing). That unity (of principle) acquires duality (in the act of seeing), and the duality is (always to be traced back to) a unity.

Now as our sight requires the world of sense for its satisfaction and realisation, so the vision in the Intellectual-Principle demands, for its completion. The Good.

III.8. .o] nature contemplation and the one

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It cannot be, itself, The Good, since then it would not need to see or to perform any other Act ; for The Good is the centre of all else, and it is by means of The Good that every thing has Act, while the Good is in need of nothing and therefore possesses nothing beyond itself.

Once you have uttered “ The Good," add no further thought : by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency.

Do not even say that it has Intellection ; you would be dividing it ; it would become a duality. Intellect and the Good.

nce you have uttered “ The Good," add no further thought : by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency.

Do not even say that it has Intellection ; you would be dividing it ; it would become a duality. Intellect and the Good. The Good has no need of the Intellectual-Principle which, on the contrary, needs it, and, attaining it, is shaped into Goodness and becomes perfect by it ; the Form thus received, sprung from the Good, brings it to likeness with the Good.

Thus the traces of the Good discerned upon it must be taken as indication of the nature of that Archetype : we form a conception of its Authentic Being from its image playing upon the Intellectual-Principle. This image of itself, it has communicated to the Intellect that contemplates it : thus all the striving is on the side of the Intellect, which is the eternal striver and eternally the attainer. The Being beyond neither strives, since it feels no lack, nor attains, since it has no striving. And this marks it off from the Intellectual-Principle, to which characteristically belongs the striving, the concentrated strain towards its Form.

Yet : The Intellectual-Principle ; beautiful ; the most beautiful of all ; lying lapped in pure light and in clear radiance ; circumscribing the Nature of the Authentic Existents ; the original of which this beautiful world is a shadow and an image ; tranquil in the fullness of glory since in it there is nothing devoid of intellect, nothing dark or out of rule ; a living thing in a life of blessedness : this, too, must overwhelm with awe any that has seen it, and penetrated it, to become a unit of its Being.

But : — As one that looks up to the heavens and sees the splendour of the stars thinks of the Maker and searches, so whoever has contemplated the Intellectual Universe and known it and wondered for it must search after its Maker too. What Being has raised so noble a fabric ? And

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PLOTINUS

where ? And how ? Who has begotten such a child, this Intellectual- Principle, this lovely abundance so abundantly endowed ?

The Source of all this cannot be an Intellect ; nor can it be an abundant power : it must have been before Intellect and abundance were ; these are later and things of lack ; abundance had to be made abundant and Intellection needed to know.

These are very near to the un-needing, to that which has no need of Knowing, they have abundance and intellection authentically, as being the first to possess.

e are later and things of lack ; abundance had to be made abundant and Intellection needed to know.

These are very near to the un-needing, to that which has no need of Knowing, they have abundance and intellection authentically, as being the first to possess. But, there is That before them which neither needs nor possesses anything, since, needing or possessing anything else, it would not be what it is — The Good.

NINTH TRACTATE
Detached Considerations

I.

“The Intellectual-Principle” ( = the Divine Mind) — we read (in the Timaeus) — “ looks upon the Ideas indwelling in that Being which is the Essentially Living ( = according to Plotinus, the Intellectual Realm), and then the text proceeds — “ the Creator judged that all the content of that essentially living Being must find place in this lower universe also.”

Are we meant to gather that the Ideas came into being before the
Intellectual-Principle so that it “ sees them ” as previously existent ?

The first step is to make sure whether the “ Living Being ” of the text is to be distinguished from the Intellectual-Principle as another thing than it.

It might be argued that the Intellectual- Principle is the Contemplator and therefore that the Living-Being contemplated is not the Intellectual- Principle but must be described as the Intellectual Object so that the Intellectual-Principle must possess the Ideal realm as something outside of itself.

But this would mean that it possesses images and not the realities, since the realities are in the Intellectual Realm which it contemplates :

III. 9- i]

DETACHED CONSIDERATIONS

p. 137

Reality — we read — is in the Authentic Existent which contains the essential form of particular things.

No : even though the Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual Object are distinct, they are not apart except for just that distinction.

Nothing in the statement cited is inconsistent with the conception that these two constitute one substance — though, in a unity, admitting that distinction, of the intellectual act (as against passivity), without which there can be no question of an Intellectual-Principle and an Intellectual Object : what is meant is not that the contemplatory Being possesses its vision as in some other principle, but that it contains the Intellectual Realm within itself.