Plotinus and his successors are the model of the Pseudo-Dionysius in his language concerning the Deity. Of his abstract primal principle neither being nor life can be predicated; he is above being and above life. _Enn._ iii. lib. 8, c. 9. But man by simplifying his nature to the utmost possible extent may become lost in this Unity. In _Enn._ v. lib. 5, c. 8, the mind of the contemplative philosopher is described as illumined with a divine light. He cannot tell whence it comes, or whither it goes. It is rather he himself who approaches or withdraws. He must not pursue it (οὐ χρὴ διώκειν) but abide (a true Quietist) in patient waiting, as one looking for the rising of the sun out of the ocean. The soul, blind to all beside, gazes intently on the ideal vision of the Beautiful, and is glorified as it contemplates it—ἐκεῖ ἑαυτὸν πᾶς τρέπων καὶ διδοὺς στας δὲ καὶ οἷον πληρωθεὶς μένους, εἶδε μὲν τὰ πρῶτα καλλίω γενόμενον ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἐπιστίλβοντα ὡς ἐγγὺς ὄντος αὐτοῦ. But this is only a preliminary stage of exaltation. The Absolute or the One, has no parts; all things partake of him, nothing possesses him; to see impartially is an impossibility, a contradiction,—if we imagine we recognise a portion he is far from us yet,—to see him mediately (δι᾽ ἑτέρων) is to behold his traces, not himself. Ὅταν μὲν ὁρᾶς ὁλον βλέπε. But, asks Plotinus, is not seeing him wholly identity with him? cap. 10. The mystical aspirant is directed therefore to leave the glorified image of himself, radiant with the transforming effulgence of Beauty, to escape from his individual self by withdrawing into his own unity, wherein he becomes identified with the Infinite One—εἰς ἓν αὑτῷ ἐλθὼυ, καὶ μήκετι σχίσας, ἓν ὁμοῦ πάντα ἐστὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀψοφητὶ παρόντος. Retreating into the inmost recesses of his own being, he there ἔχει πᾶν, καὶ ἀφεὶς τὴν αἴσθησιν εἰς τ᾽ οὐπίσω, τοῦ ἕτερος εἶναι φόβῳ, εἶς ἐστίν ἐκεῖ. No language could more clearly express the doctrine of identity—the object seen and the subject seeing are one. Plotinus triumphantly asks—πῶς οὖν ἕσται τί; ἐν καλῷ, μὴ ὁρμῶν αὐτό· ἤ ὁρῶν αὐτὸ ὡς ἕτερον, οὐδέπω ἐν καλῷ· γενόμενος δὲ αὐτὸ, οὕτω μάλιστα ἐν καλῷ εἰ οὖν ὅρασις τοῦ ἔξο, ὅρασιν μὺν οὐ δεῖ εἶναι, ἢ οὔτως ὡς ταὺτὸν τῷ ὁρατῷ. _Ibid._ pp. 552-3. Footnote 12: