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
(It might be objected) that if the souls on high do not reason,
they will no longer be reasonable. They remain reasonable, however,
because they are well able to penetrate into the essence of something,
whenever the occasion demands it. Ratiocination should be considered
as follows. If it consist in a disposition that is always derived
from Intelligence, in an immanent act, a reflection of this power in
souls, these must also reason in the intelligible world; but then they
have no further need of language. Likewise, when they inhabit heaven,
neither do they need to take recourse to speech, as do the souls here
below, as a result of their needs and uncertainties. They act in an
orderly manner, and in conformity with nature, without premeditation
or deliberation. They know each other by a simple intuition, as even
here below we know our like without their talking to us, by a mere
glance. On high every body is pure and transparent. Each person there,
is, as it were, an eye. Nothing is hidden or simulated. Before you have
spoken, your thought is already known. It is probable that speech is
used by the guardians and other living inhabitants of the air, for they
are living beings.
D. HOW CAN THE SOUL SIMULTANEOUSLY BE DIVISIBLE AND INDIVISIBLE?
A DECISION WILL DEPEND ON THE MEANING OF THE TERMS.
19. Must we consider that (in the soul), the indivisible and the
divisible are identical, as if they were mingled together? Or should
we consider the distinction between the indivisible and the divisible
from some other point of view? Should the first be considered as the
higher part of the soul, and the latter as the lower, just exactly as
we say that one part of the soul is rational, and the other part is
irrational? Such questions can be answered only by a close scrutiny of
the nature of the divisibility and indivisibility of the soul.
THE BODY NEEDS THE SOUL FOR LIFE.
When Plato[130] says that the soul is indivisible, he speaks
absolutely. When he insists that she is divisible, it is always
relatively (to the body). He does indeed say that she becomes divisible
in the bodies, but not that she has become such. Let us now examine
how, by her nature, the body needs the soul to live, and what necessity
there is for the soul to be present in the entire body.
SENSE, GROWTH AND EMOTION TEND TOWARDS DIVISIBILITY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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