Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
3. When the soul departs from the intelligible world; when instead of
continuing to form a unity with it, she wishes to become independent,
to become distinct, and to belong to herself; when she inclines
towards the things here below, then she remembers herself. The memory
of intelligible things hinders her from falling, that of terrestrial
things makes her descend here below, and that of celestial things makes
her dwell in heaven. In general, the soul is and becomes what she
remembers. Indeed, to remember is to think or imagine; now, to imagine
is not indeed to possess a thing, but to see it and to conform to it.
If the soul see sense-things, by the very act of looking at them she
somehow acquires some extension. As she is things other than herself
only secondarily, she is none of them perfectly. Placed and established
on the confines of the sense and intelligible worlds, she may equally
move towards either.
MEMORY IS NOT AS HIGH AS UNREFLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION.
4. In the intelligible world, the soul sees the Good by intelligence;
for intelligence does not hinder her from arriving to the Good.
Between the soul and the Good, the intermediary is not the body, which
could be no more than an obstacle; for if the bodies can ever serve
as intermediaries, it would only be in the process of descending
from the first principles to third rank entities. When the soul
occupies herself with inferior objects, she possesses what she wished
to possess conformably to her memory and imagination. Consequently
memory, even should it apply itself to the very best things, is not
the best thing possible; for it consists not only in feeling that one
remembers, but also in finding oneself in a disposition conformable to
the affections, to the earlier intuitions which are remembered. Now
it may happen that a soul possesses something unconsciously, so that
she possesses it better than if she were conscious thereof. In fact,
when she is conscious thereof, she possesses it like something foreign
to her, and from which she is keeping herself distinct; when, on the
contrary, she is unconscious of it she becomes what she possesses; and
it is especially this latter kind of memory which can most thoroughly
effect her degradation (when she conforms herself to sense-objects, by
applying her imagination thereto).
INTELLIGIBLE ENTITIES ARE NOT MERELY IMAGES, BUT POTENTIALITIES FOR
MEMORY.
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