light, or even without magnitude.[300] If this thing had any magnitude, the soul would lend it a form. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MENTAL BLANK AND IMPRESSION OF THE SHAPELESS. (An objector might ask) whether there be identity of conditions between the soul's not thinking, and her experience while thinking of matter? By no means; when the soul is not thinking of anything, she neither asserts anything, nor experiences anything. When she thinks of matter, she experiences something, she receives the impression of the shapeless. When she presents to herself objects that possess shape and magnitude, she conceives of them as composite; for she sees them as distinct (or, colored?) and determined by qualities they contain. She conceives of both the totality and its two constituent elements. She also has a clear perception, a vivid sensation of properties inherent (in matter). On the contrary, the soul receives only an obscure perception of the shapeless subject, for there is no form there. Therefore, when the soul considers matter in general, in the composite, with the qualities inherent in this composite, she separates them, analyzes them, and what is left (after this analysis), the soul perceives it vaguely, and obscurely, because it is something vague and obscure; she thinks it, without really thinking it. On the other hand, as matter does not remain shapeless, as it is always shaped, within objects, the soul always imposes on matter the form of things, because only with difficulty does she support the indeterminate, since she seems to fear to fall out of the order of beings, and to remain long in nonentity. THE COMPOSITION OF A BODY NEEDS A SUBSTRATE. 11. (Following the ideas of Aristotle,[301] Plotinos wonders whether some objector) will ask whether the composition of a body requires anything beyond extension and all the other qualities? Yes: it demands a substrate to receive them (as a residence). This substrate is not a mass; for in this case, it would be an extension. But if this substrate have no extension, how can it be a residence (for form)? Without extension, it could be of no service, contributing neither to form nor qualities, to magnitude nor extension. It seems that extension, wherever it be, is given to bodies by matter. Just as actions, effects, times and movements, though they do not imply any matter, nevertheless are beings, it would seem that the elementary bodies do not necessarily imply matter (without extension), being individual beings, whose diverse substance is constituted by the mingling of several forms. Matter without extension, therefore, seems to be no more than a meaningless name. MATTER AS THE IMAGE OF EXTENSION, CAN YET BE RESIDENCE OF FORM.