Select Works of Plotinus — trans. Thomas Taylor

which accedes to it externally.1

VIII. Such, therefore, is the solution of these particulars ; the sympathy of souls being no impe¬ diment to our arguments. For since all of them originate from the same source as the soul of the universe, they are co-passive. For it has been already asserted by us that there is one [first] soul, and many souls. And we have likewise shown what the difference is between part and wdiole; and have in short spoken concerning the difference of souls. Now, also, we shall summarily observe,p. 337 that besides bodies souls differ, especially in their manners, in the operations of the reasoning power, and from a pre-existent life. For in the Republic of Plato it is said, that the choice of souls is made conformably to their antecedent lives. But if any one in short assumes the nature of soul, he will assert that there are differences in the souls in which it is admitted there are second and third de¬ grees. It has, likewise, been said by us, that all souls are all things ; and that each is characterized by that which energizes in each. This, however, is the same thing as to assert, that one soul indeed is united in energy, another in knowledge, and another in appetite. Different souls also behold different objects, and are and become the very objects which they behold. Plenitude, likewise, and perfection pertain to souls, yet all of them have not the same of either of these ; but the whole co-ordination of them is various. For every reason [or productive principle] is one, abundant, and various, in the same manner as a psychical animal, which has many forms. But if this be the case, there is co-ordination, and beings are not, in short, divulsed from each other. Nor i« there any where that which is casual in beings ; not even among

1 i. e. It has a rational soul different from that of the mother. It is better, however, to say with Proclus, that as nature does nothing in vain, the presence of the rational soul to the foetus in the womb would be useless, as it could not then energize ; but that it becomes united to the irrational soul in the very moment in which the infant leaves the womb.

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bodies/ Hence it follows, that the number of things is definite. For again, it is necessary that

* beings should stop [in their progression], that intelligibles should continue the same, and that each thing should be one in number ; for thus it will be this particular thing .

llows, that the number of things is definite. For again, it is necessary that

* beings should stop [in their progression], that intelligibles should continue the same, and that each thing should be one in number ; for thus it will be this particular thing . For every body being natu¬ rally in a continual flux, in consequence of having an adventitious form, the perpetual existence of bodies according to form takes place through an imitation of [real] beings. The essence of the latter, however, as not subsisting from composition, consists in that which is one in number, which exists from the beginning, and neither becomes that which it was not, nor will be that which it is not ; since if there were any thing in some future time which could produce them, it would not produce them from matter. But if this be the case, it is necessary to add something which is of itself essen¬ tial J so that there will be a mutation about this very thing, if it now produces more or less. Why, likewise, should it produce now, and not always after the same manner? That, likewise, which is generated will not be perpetual, if it admits of the more and the less. But soul is supposed to be a thing of this kind. How*, therefore, is it infinite ifp. 339 it is stopped [in its progression] ? May we not say, that it is infinite in power, because power is infinite, since God himself is not bounded. With respect to souls, therefore, each is not that which it is, as if it were so much in quantity, through a foreign boundary; but it is as great as it wishes to be. Nor will it ever proceed out of itself, but will per¬ vade every where, to bodies and through bodies, as it is naturally adapted to do ; yet it is not divulsed from itself, when it is in a finger and a foot. Thus also in the universe, soul remains entire, into what¬ ever it may proceed, and in another and another part of a plant. Hence, when any part of a plant is cut off, it is both in the plant as it was at first, and in the part which is separated from it. For soul is every where in the body of the universe, as in the one of it, this body being one. But when an animal becomes putrid, if many animals are generated from it, soul is then no longer the soul of the whole animal in the body ; for it has not then a proper receptacle of itself ; nor yet does it perish.

in the one of it, this body being one. But when an animal becomes putrid, if many animals are generated from it, soul is then no longer the soul of the whole animal in the body ; for it has not then a proper receptacle of itself ; nor yet does it perish. But the putrified matter being adapted to the generation of animals, has partly the soul of these, and partly the soul of those animals, soul never being absent from any thing, though onep. 340 tiling is adapted to receive it, and another is not The parts of matter, however, which thus become animated, are not the cause of there being many souls. For these [spontaneously-generated] animals are suspended from one soul, so far as it remains one ; in the same manner as in us, when certain parts of the body are amputated, and others grow instead of them, the soul indeed is absent from [i. e. is not participated by] the, former, but is pre¬ sent with the latter, so long as it remains one. In the universe, however, it always remains one. But of the natures within the universe, some indeed have soul, but others not, the same psychical [powers] still remaining.

IX. The manner, however, in which the soul is ingenerated in the body, must be considered. For this is no less admirable, and no less deserves

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to be investigated. The mode, therefore, in which the soul enters into the bodv is twofold. For one of these modes takes place, w hen the soul being in one body changes it for another, and from an aerial [or fiery], becomes situated in a terrestrial body ; which some do not call a transmigration, because that from which the insertion originates is immap. 341iiifest. But the other mode is a transition from an incorporeal essence to any body whatever ; which also will be the first communion of the soul with the body. It will be right, therefore, to consider respecting this communion, what the passion arising from this conjunction then is, when the soul being entirely pure from body, becomes surrounded with the nature of body. Let us, however, first consider how this is effected in the soul of the universe ; for perhaps it is proper, or rather is necessary, to begin from hence. For it is requisite that we should explain its ingress into and animation of the body, for the sake of doctrine and perspicuity. Though there never was a time, therefore, in which this universe was not animated, and it is not possi¬ ble for body to subsist if soul is absent, nor was matter ever unadorned, yet it is possible in con-

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ception and in words to separate these from each other.