V. I, 6. Far from our thought be any generation in time when we treat of the Ever-Existents. ... Nor may we attribute action to the Generator. If there were action this very action would have to be counted among the Divine Principles and the engendered Hypostasis (The Intellectual-Principle) would be a Third, not a Second. The First is immobile ; any second must spring from it without any assent in It, apart from Its will, without any movement in It. . . . And all things that have Being, as long as that Being inheres to them, must by the virtue that is in them, give forth from their essence an hypostasis belonging to them but going forth to the outer while still closely linked to them, an image, as it were, of this original and archetype : fire thus gives forth its heat ; snow does not keep its inner cold to itself ; perfumes, too, may serve in illustration ; as long as they exist they spread abroad something of themselves to the pleasure of all that are near.
All that has reached its perfection produces ; The Eternally Perfect produces an eternal product, though a product of less perfection than Itself.
” Matter to the Intellectual-Principle ” : — The Intelligible (or Intellectual) - Matter in the Divine Mind is explained in —
II. 4, 4. ” If, then, the Divine Thought-Forms (The Ideas) are many, there
must of necessity be something common to all and something peculiar to each to differentiate them : this particularity or specific difference is the individual shape ; but if there is shape there must be something that has taken the shape . . . that is to say there is a foundation, substratum, a Matter. Further, if there is an Intel-
lectual Kosmos of which our Kosmos is an image, and if ours is compound and includes Matter, there must be a Matter in the Intellectual Kosmos as well.
The Intellectual Principle and the Intellectual-realm in Relation
TO THE One
V. I, 4. If anything more is needed to establish the magnificence of Divine- Mind, look, with awe, to this sense-known Universe ; consider its vastness, and its beauty and the harmony of its eternal course, the Gods within it, the seen Gods and the unseen, and the blessed spirits (n) and all the life of animal and plant. Then ascend to its Original, to its more authentic form, and There contemplate all the Intellectual Host, immortal by their own indwelling right, in the plenitude of their own conscious life ; see, presiding above these, the immaculate Divine-Mind ; consider that fathomless Wisdom, that veritable Saturnian Age, age of Kronos, who is Son of God and is the Intellect of the Divinity, embracing all the immortal orders — all Intelligence, every God, every soul — in His calm eternal Identity. Eternally identical this Principle must be, for what change or “ otherness ” could be sought There where all is well ? Whither could that Being move outside Itself, having all within Itself ? What increase (and, therefore, diversity) could The Most Perfect desire ? In Him, in all ways consummate, all things are consummate ; of all that He has, all is perfect : and of all that is within His being, all is perfect : of all that is His there is nothing that He does not know — knowing by a knowledge that is never sought but always immediately present (n) ; and His blessedness is nothing from without but exists, all, in the one Eternity, exists to the Divine Mind which is Itself the veritable Eternity mimicked by that Soul-circling movement of Time which is ever flinging aside the outworn and clutching at the new.
The Soul (principle of movement and author of Time) is occupied always with consecutive things — always with some single object, now Socrates, and now a horse — but Divine Mind knows aU as one. Within this all things are contained at rest in Unity ; it alone has Authentic Existence and Its “ I am ” is for ever : nowhere is there any future to It ; already It is all Its infinity ; nowhere any past for nothing There can pass, but, as all is True-Being There, so all holds steadfast always, all things in the divine finding joy in their state. Each Being of all that are There is Divine Mind, is Authentic Existence ; and their entirety constitutes Divine Mind entire and Authentic Existence entire. This Divine Mind, through Its Act, Its Intellection, becomes Existence ; and Existence, in that it is the object of the Intellection, brings to Divine Mind both Intellection and Existence.
Reasoning and Intuition
The First Cause of the Intellectual-Principle is another Principle which is the Cause also of Existence ; this Cause, distinct from either, is common to them since they have their substantial existence together, never deserting each other ; so that, while they are two, they yet constitute a Unity, w'hich Unity is at once Intel- lection and Existence, Thinker and Thought — the Intellectual-Principle being the Intellective Subject while Existence is the object of the Intellection (n). For the Intellection could not take place if this Intellectual Kosmos did not contain, at once, identity and difference.
Thus the Primals are Intellection (=The Intellectual-Principle) Existence, Differentiation and Identity. To these must also be added Motion and Rest (n) — Motion corresponding to the Act of Intellection, Rest to the unbroken Identity. Differentiation is implied by there being a Thinker and a Thought (an Intellectual- Principle and an object of Intellection) : if this difference did not e.xist, all would be a silent Oneness.
There must also be a difference among the Divine Thoughts (The Ideas) — with, yet, identity since the Intellectual-Principle is one in itself, a common prin- ciple to all : this Difference is that the Ideas are distinct (i.e. it is not a difference of essential nature).
It is this Multiplicity of difference in the Divine Realm itself that produces Number and Quantity and even Quality which is the specific character of these Principles, the sources of all else that exists.
Notes
“ Blessed-Spirits ” : — These are the Daimones.
" Knowledge immedi.\tely present ” : — Enquiry implies an imperfect mentality and therefore cannot be imputed to the Intellectual-Principle : the Soul has, of itself, only the Reasoning-Intelligence. Thus : —
V. I, 10. “ Our Soul is a Divine Thing, outside of the Realm of Sense as
Soul-Nature must be : it is consummate when it has attached itself to the Intel- lectual-Principle, which in part is eternally self-wTapped in Intellection but in part is occupied abroad in leading the Soul towards Intellection.” " The higher part of the Soul,” Plotinus continues, “ is ever absorbed in the Divine Mind.”
So also : —
V. I, II. " And if the Soul, though it must sometimes reason towards the Just and the Good, may sometimes know them immediately, there must be within us the Intellectual-Principle which never seeks but eternally knows the Right.”
All Reasoning belongs to the inferior order : —
IV. 3, i8. “ Does the Soul employ Reasoning before it enters the body and
when it has left body, or only while it is here ? Only here, where it knows doubt and care and weakness ; for Intelligence is the less self-sufficing for needing to reason, just as in the crafts or arts reasoning means hesitation in the workman, but when all is plain the craft takes its own masterly way. In the Intellectual Order there is no ratiocination and the man arrived at this degree does not employ it.”
V. 5, I. ” The Intellectual-Principle must ever know and never overlook or forget ; its knowing can never come by way of conjecture, never be doubtful, never depend upon learning from without or upon any proving. This Intellectual- Principle (even in man) has nothing to do with sense-reports ; it contemplates nothing outside of itself.”
” The Intellective Subject and the Object of Intellection ” : — Authentic- Existence and The Divine Mind are customarily named together by Plotinus as one entity : to him there is no real being except what is of the Intellectual and Intelligible order ; —
V. 4, 2. “ The Intellectual-Principle is Itself the Intelligible — the object of
True-Knowing — and at the same time the Intelligent — the True-Knower. Real- Being and the Intellectual-Principle are identical, for the Divine Mind does not act upon Its object as sensation acts upon material things which must exist apart from the sensation : the Intellectual-Principle actually is all the Existence upon which it exercises its Act.”
So again : —
V. I, 10. ” And in sequence upon The First comes Existence, that is the
Intellectual-Principle. ’ ’
This Existence (or Being) is also called Essence : — e.g. in I. 7, i we read of ” Intelligence and Essence ” where the reference is to the Second Principle, the Emanation directly proceeding from the First, the One.
‘‘ Motion and Rest ” : — Since the Intellectual-Principle is identical with its Act (Intellection) and with its object (Existence) it follows that Motion and Rest must be attributed to it : for ” Intellection is the First Life ” (III. 8, 7) and Life is identical with Act (expressive or functional activity) as we are told more than once. Compare VI. 2, 8. ‘‘ Activity and movement accompany the Intellection in the Divine Mind : in Its Self-Intellection is the foundation of Essence and Being : It exists while it thinks and it knows both itself and its objects as possessing Being . . . and Being is the absolutely unmoving, the very base in which all that is most motionless is founded.”
Act in the Supreme and in Man
Often, however, aJl motion is limited to the Soul, rest being given as the char- acteristic of the Intellectual-Principle : —
II. 9, I. “ The Divine Mind remains true to its own Being, ever in the one state, unmoving in its stable Act : all movement around It, as towards It, begins with Soul.”
IV. 4, 16. ” Making The Good the centre, the Intellectual-Principle will be
a motionless circle and the Soul a circle in motion, moved by its aspiration inwards : for the Intellectual-Principle contains The Good immediately, and the Soul must strive towards it.
The Intellectual-Principle rests ever in Itself, contemplates nothing else (except The First) never moves elsewhere and is therefore not an agent (praktikos).”
V. 3, 6. ” This principle is not an agent under need of acquiring knowledge
of the outer, as for instance a man must, w'hen he goes out from himself into the business of life.”
The Soul does not of its own right and nature possess this Intellectual-Principle which merely takes possession if the Soul turns towards It : —
V. 6, 4. " The Soul possesses the Intellectual-Principle as something added
to it : Intellection belongs essentially to the Intellectual-Principle.”
The Soul therefore has external action when it builds the Kosmos : —
IV. 8, 3. “ The Intellective Soul has Intellection for its Act, but not Intel-
lection unalloyed : if it had, it would be identical with its prior. To its nature as an Intellective it adds another Act which constitutes its characteristic ” person ” (hypostasis) and so it becomes something distinct from the Intellectual-Principle. The Soul too has its fimction, as every member of the Divine must ; looking towards its prior, it has Intellection ; looking to itself, it preserves its own essence ; looking to what comes after it, to what it orders and conducts, it rules the lower world.”
Still, on deeper examination, it is discovered that all action subserves thought and is performed for purposes of contemplation : —
III. 8, 5. ” All action is in view of contemplation . . . what we have not the
will-power to get by the direct way we seek by the round. When we acquire what our action sought, achieve what we proposed, what is it for ? Not to be ignored but to be known, to be seen ; we act for the sake of some satisfaction we desire, and this not that it may remain outside the bound of our possessions but that it may be ours. This means that it be . . . where ? WTiere but in the mind ? Thus all act circles back to thought, for what the act lays up in the soul, which is a Reason-Principle, can be nothing else than a Reason-Form, a silent thought (a thought not marred by the noise of action).”
Even the very Kosmos, shaped or created by the Soul, is itself a “ Contempla- tion ” (or, as we might say, a Mentation, an intellectual activity).
III. 8, 4. " Treating of Nature we said that all engendering was a Contempla-