Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
(Of the essences it contains) it possesses the number, as it is both
one and many. It is many, that is, (it is) many potentialities, which
are admirable powers, full of force and greatness, because they are
pure; powers that are vigorous and veritable because they have no goal
at which they are forced to stop; consequently being infinite, that
is, supreme Infinity, and Greatness. If then we were to scrutinize
this greatness and beauty of being, if by the splendor and light
which surround it, we were to distinguish what Intelligence contains,
then would we see the efflorescing of quality. With the continuity
of actualization we would behold greatness, in quiescent condition.
As we have seen one (number), two (quality), and three (greatness),
greatness, as the third thing, presents itself with universal quantity.
Now, as soon as quality and quantity show themselves to us, they unite,
blend into one and the same figure (outward appearance). Then comes
difference, which divides quality and quantity, whence arise different
qualities, and differences of figure. The presence of identity produces
equality, and that of difference, inequality, both in quantity, number,
and dimension; hence the circle, the quadrilateral, and the figures
composed of unequal things; hence numbers that are similar, and
different, even and uneven.
THIS INTELLECTUAL LIFE POSSESSES THE REASONS OR IDEAS.
Thus intellectual Life, which is the perfect actualization, embraces
all the things that our mind now conceives, and all intellectual
operations. In its potentiality it contains all things as essences,
in the same manner as Intelligence does. Now Intelligence possesses
them by thought, a thought which is not discursive (but intuitive).
The intellectual life therefore possesses all the things of which
there are "reasons" (that is, ideas); itself is a single Reason,
great, perfect, which contains all reasons,[327] which examines them
in an orderly fashion, beginning with the first, or rather, which has
ever examined them, so that one could never really tell that it was
examining them.[328] For all things that we grasp by ratiocination,
in whatever part soever of the universe they may be located, are
found as intuitively possessed by Intelligence. It would seem as if
it was Essence itself which, (being identical with Intelligence), had
made Intelligence reason thus (by producing its conceptions),[329]
as appears to happen in the ("seminal) reasons" which produce the
animals.[330] In the (ideas, that is in the "seminal) reasons" which
are anterior to ratiocination, all things are found to possess a
constitution such that the most penetrating intelligence would have
considered best, by reasoning.[331] We should therefore expect (great
and wonderful things) of these Ideas, superior and anterior to Nature
and ("seminal) reasons." There Intelligence fuses with "Being;"[329]
neither in essence nor intelligence is there anything adventitious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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