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
those least seek objects agreeable to the body, and who even scorn the
body, are least likely to abandon themselves to the blind transports
of anger. Although plant-life possesses the vegetative power, it does
not possess the faculty of anger because it has neither blood nor bile.
These are the two things which, in the absence of sensation, leads
one to boil with indignation. When however sensation joins these two
elements, there arises an impulse to fight against the harmful object.
If the irrational part of the soul were to be divided into the faculty
of desire, and that of anger, and if the former were to be considered
the vegetative power, and the other, on the contrary, as a trace of
the vegetative power, residing in either the heart or blood, or in
both; this division would not consist of opposed members, because the
second would proceed from the first. But there is an alternative: both
members of this division, the faculties of desire and anger, might be
considered two powers derived from one and the same principle (the
vegetative power). Indeed, when the appetites are divided, it is their
nature, and not the being from which they depend, that is considered.
This essence itself, however, is not the appetite, but completes it,
harmonizing with it the actions proceeding from the appetite. It is
also reasonable to assign the heart as seat of the trace of the soul
which constitutes anger; for the heart is not the seat of the soul, but
the source of the (arterially) circulating blood.
WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES THE BODY, SHE LEAVES A TRACE OF LIFE.
29. If the body resemble an object warmed rather than illuminated, why
does nothing vital remain after the reasonable soul has abandoned it?
It does preserve some vital element, but only for a short time; this
trace soon disappears, as vanishes the heat of an object when it is
removed from the fire. After death, some trace of life still remains.
This is proved by the growth of hair and nails on corpses; and it is
well known that animals, even after being cut in pieces, still move
for some time. Besides, the disappearance of the (vegetative) life
simultaneously with the reasonable soul, does not prove their identity,
and that they (the reasonable soul, and the vegetative soul) are not
different. When the sun disappears, it causes the disappearance not
only of the light that surrounds it immediately, and as it were depends
from it, but also of the brilliance which these objects receive from
this light, and which completely differs from it.
DOES THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THESE THINGS NECESSARILY IMPLY THEIR
DESTRUCTION?
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