Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods — John Shaqi
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
If the soul's relation to the body is the same as that of the statue
to the metal, the soul will be divided with the body, and on cutting
a member a portion of the soul would be cut along with it. According
to this teaching, the soul separates from the body only during sleep,
since she must inhere in the body of which she is the entelechy, in
which case sleep would become entirely inexplicable. If the soul be an
entelechy, the struggle of reason against the passions would become
entirely impossible. The entire human being will experience but one
single sentiment, and never be in disagreement with itself. If the
soul be an entelechy, there will perhaps still be sensations, but mere
sensations; pure thoughts will have become impossible. Consequently
the Peripateticians themselves are obliged to introduce (into human
nature) another soul, namely, the pure intelligence, which they
consider immortal.[77] The rational soul, therefore, would have to be
an entelechy in a manner different from their definition thereof, if
indeed this name is at all to be used.
IF AN ENTELECHY BE GRANTED, IT IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE BODY.
The sense-soul, which preserves the forms of sense-objects previously
perceived, must preserve them without the body. Otherwise, these forms
would inhere in the body like figures and corporeal shapes. Now, if
the forms inhered in the sense-soul in this manner, they could not
be received therein otherwise (than as corporeal impressions). That
is why, if we do grant the existence of an entelechy, it must be
inseparable from the body. Even the faculty of appetite, not indeed
that which makes us feel the need of eating and drinking, but that
which desires things that are independent of the body, could not either
be an entelechy.[78]
NEITHER COULD THE SOUL OF GROWTH BE AN ENTELECHY.
The soul's faculty of growth remains to be considered. This at least
might be thought an inseparable entelechy. But neither does that suit
her nature. For if the principle of every plant is in its root, and if
growth takes place around and beneath it,[79] as occurs in many plants,
it is evident that the soul's faculty of growth, abandoning all the
other parts, has concentrated in the root alone; it, therefore, was not
distributed all around the soul, like an inseparable entelechy. Add
that this soul, before the plant grows, is already contained in the
small body (of the seed). If then, after having vivified a great plant,
the soul's faculty of growth can condense into a small space, and if
later it can, from this small space, again spread over a whole plant,
it is evidently entirely separable from the (plant's) matter.
THE ENTELECHY IS NOT A FORM OF THE BODY, AS THE SOUL TRANSMIGRATES.
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