The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

elements there are not worn away like beams and rafters : they hold sound for ever, and so the All holds sound. And even supposing these elements to be in ceaseless transmutation, yet the All persists : the ground of all the change must itself be changeless.

As to any alteration of purpose in the Soul (such as might lead it to

p. 148

PLOTINUS

bring the Kosmos to an end) we have already shown the emptiness of that fancy : the administration of the universe entails neither labour nor loss ; and, even supposing the possibility of annihilating all that is material, the Soul would be no whit the better or the worse.

5-

But how explain the permanence There, while the content of this sphere — its elements and its living things alike— are passing ?

The reason is given by Plato ; the celestial order is from God, the living things of earth from the gods sprung from God ; and it is law that the offspring of God endures.

In other words, the celestial soul — and our souls with it — springs directly next from the Creator, while the animal life of this earth is produced by an image which goes forth from that celestial soul and may be said to flow downwards from it.

A soul, then, of the minor degree — reproducing, indeed, that of the Divine sphere but lacking in power inasmuch as it must exercise its creative act upon inferior stuff in an inferior region — the substances taken up into the fabric being of themselves repugnant to duration ; with such an origin the living things of this realm cannot be of strength to last for ever ; the material constituents are not as firmly held and controlled as if they were ruled immediately by a Principle of higher potency.

The heavens, on the contrary, must have persistence as a whole, and this entails the persistence of the parts, of the stars they contain : we could not imagine that whole to endure with the parts in flux — though, of course, we must distinguish things sub-celestial from the heavens themselves whose region does not in fact extend so low as to the moon.

Our own case is different : physically we are formed by that (inferior) soul, given forth (not directly from God but) from the divine beings in the heavens and from the heavens themselves ; it is by way of that inferior soul that we are associated with the body (which therefore will not be persistent) ; for the higher soul which constitutes the We is the

II. I.

m God but) from the divine beings in the heavens and from the heavens themselves ; it is by way of that inferior soul that we are associated with the body (which therefore will not be persistent) ; for the higher soul which constitutes the We is the

II. I. 6]

THE KOSMOS

p. 149

principle not of our existence but of our excellence— or, if also of our existence, then only in the sense that, when the body is already constituted, it enters, bringing with it some effluence from the Divine Reason in support of the existence.

6.

We may now consider the question whether fire is the sole element existing in that celestial realm and whether there is any outgoing thence with the consequent need of renewal.

Timaeus pronounced the material frame of the All to consist primarily of earth and fire — fire for visibility, earth for solidity — and deduced that the stars must be mainly composed of fire, but not solely since there is no doubt they are solid.

And this is probably a true account. Plato accepts it as indicated by all the appearances. And, in fact, to all our perception — as we see them and derive from them the impression of illumination — the stars appear to be mostly, if not exclusively, fire : but on reasoning into the matter we judge that since solidity cannot exist apart from earth-matter, they must contain earth as well.

But what place could there be for the other elements ? It is impossible to imagine water amid so vast a conflagration ; and if air were present it would be continually changing into fire.

Admitting (with Timaeus ; as a logical truth) that two self-contained entities, standing as extremes to each other need for their coherence two intermediaries ; we may still question whether this holds good with regard to physical bodies. Certainly water and earth can be mixed without any such intermediate. It might seem valid to object that the intermediates are already present in the earth and the water ; but a possible answer would be, “ Yes, but not as agents whose meeting is necessary to the coherence of those extremes.”

None the less we will take it that the coherence of extremes is produced by virtue of each possessing all the intermediates. It is still not proven that fire is necessary to the visibility of earth and earth to the solidarity of fire.

PLOTINUS

p. 150

On this principle, nothing possesses an essential-nature of its very own ; every several thing is a blend, and its name is merely an indication of the dominant constituent.

necessary to the visibility of earth and earth to the solidarity of fire.

PLOTINUS

p. 150

On this principle, nothing possesses an essential-nature of its very own ; every several thing is a blend, and its name is merely an indication of the dominant constituent.

Thus we are told that earth cannot have concrete existence without the help of some moist element — the moisture in water being the necessary adhesive — but admitting that we so find it, there is still a contradiction in pretending that any one element has a being of its own and in the same breath denying its self -coherence, making its subsistence depend upon others, and so, in reality, reducing the specific element to nothing. How can we talk of the existence of the definite Kind, earth — earth essential — if there exists no single particle of earth which actually is earth without any need of water to secure its self-cohesion ? What has such an adhesive to act upon if there is absolutely no given magnitude of real earth to which it may bind particle after particle in its business of producing the continuous mass ? If there is any such given magnitude, large or small, of pure earth, then earth can exist in its own nature, independently of water : if there is no such primary particle of pure earth, then there is nothing whatever for the water to bind. As for air — air unchanged, retaining its distinctive quality — how could it conduce to the subsistence of a dense material like earth ?

Similarly with fire. No doubt Timaeus speaks of it as necessary not to the existence but to the visibility of earth and the other elements ; and certainly light is essential to all visibility — we cannot say that we see darkness, which implies, precisely, that nothing is seen, as silence means nothing being heard.

But all this does not assure us that the earth to be visible must contain fire : light is sufficient : snow, for example, and other extremely cold substances gleam without the presence of fire— though of course it might be said that fire was once there and communicated colour before disappearing.

As to the composition of water, we must leave it an open question whether there can be such a thing as water without a certain proportion of earth.

But how can air, the yielding element, contain earth ?

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Fire, again : is earth perhaps necessary there since fire is by its own nature devoid of continuity and not a thing of three dimensions ?

Supposing it does not possess the solidity of the three dimensions, it has that of its thrust ; now, cannot this belong to it by the mere right and