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
9. So much then for what we had to say of sense-being, and the genus it
constitutes. It remains to analyze it into species. Every sense-being
is a body; but there are elementary and organized bodies; the former
are fire, earth, water and air; the organized bodies are those of
plants and animals, which are distinguished from each other by their
forms. The earth and the other elements may be divided into species.
Plants and bodies of animals may be classified according to their
forms; or we could classify apart the terrestrial animals, that inhabit
the earth, and those which belong to some other element. We might also
analyze bodies into those that are light, heavy, or intermediary; the
heavy bodies remaining in the middle of the world, the light bodies in
the superior region which surrounds the world, and the intermediary
bodies dwelling in the intermediary region. In each one of these
regions the bodies are distinguished by their exterior appearance (or,
figure); thus there exist the bodies of the (stars, or) celestial
bodies, and then those that belong to particular elements. After having
distributed the bodies according to the four elements, they could be
blended together in some other manner, and thus beget their mutual
differences of location, forms, and mixtures. Bodies could also be
distinguished as fiery, terrestrial, and so forth, according to their
predominating element.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY BEINGS ARE DIVIDED BY NO SUBSTANTIAL DIFFERENCE.
As to the distinction drawn between primary and secondary being,[376]
it must be admitted that some particular fire, and the universal Fire
differ from each other in this, that the one is individual, and the
other universal; but the difference between them does not seem to
be essential. Indeed, does the genus of quality contain both White,
and a particular white; or Grammar, and some particular grammatical
science? How far does Grammatical science then have less reality than
some particular grammatical science, and Science, than some particular
science? Grammatical science is not posterior to some particular
grammatical science; Grammatical science must already have existed
before the existence of the grammatical science in you, since the
latter is some grammatical science because it is found in you; it is
besides identical with universal Grammatical science. Likewise, it
is not Socrates that caused him who was not a man to become a man;
it is rather the universal Man who enabled Socrates to be a man; for
the individual man is man by participation in the universal Man. What
then is Socrates, if not some man? In what does such a man contribute
to render "being" more "being"? If the answer be that he contributes
thereto by the fact that the universal Man is only a form, while a
particular man is a form in matter, the result will only be that a
particular man will be less of a man; for reason (that is, essence) is
weaker when it is in matter. If the universal Man consist not only in
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