Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
The musician allows himself to be easily moved by beauty, and admires
it greatly; but he is not able by himself to achieve the intuition of
the beautiful. He needs the stimulation of external impressions. Just
as some timorous being is awakened by the least noise, the musician is
sensitive to the beauty of the voice and of harmonies. He avoids all
that seems contrary to the laws of harmony and of unity, and enjoys
rhythm and melodies in instrumental and vocal music. After these purely
sensual intonations, rhythm and tunes, he will surely in them come to
distinguish form from matter, and to contemplate the beauty existing in
their proportions and relations. He will have to be taught that what
excites his admiration in these things, is their intelligible harmony,
the beauty it contains, and, in short, beauty absolute, and not
particular. He will have to be introduced to philosophy by arguments
that will lead him to recognize truths that he ignored, though he
possessed them instinctively. Such arguments will be specified
elsewhere.[346]
HOW THE LOVER RISES TO THE INTELLIGIBLE.
2. The musician can rise to the rank of the lover, and either remain
there, or rise still higher. But the lover has some reminiscence of the
beautiful; but as here below he is separated (from it, he is incapable
of clearly knowing what it is). Charmed with the beautiful objects
that meet his views, he falls into an ecstasy. He must therefore be
taught not to content himself with thus admiring a single body, but,
by reason, to embrace all bodies that reveal beauty; showing him what
is identical in all, informing him that it is something alien to the
bodies, which comes from elsewhere, and which exists even in a higher
degree in the objects of another nature; citing, as examples, noble
occupations, and beautiful laws. He will be shown that beauty is found
in the arts, the sciences, the virtues, all of which are suitable means
of familiarizing the lover with the taste of incorporeal things. He
will then be made to see that beauty is one, and he will be shown the
element which, in every object, constitutes beauty. From virtues he
will be led to progress to intelligence and essence, while from there
he will have nothing else to do but to progress towards the supreme
goal.
HOW THE PHILOSOPHER RISES TO THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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