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
When the third life (the sense-power) which constitutes the third
man, is separated from the body, if the life that precedes it (the
discursive reason) accompany it without nevertheless being separated
from the intelligible world, then one may say that the second is
everywhere the third is. It might seem surprising that the latter, when
passing into the body of a brute, should drag along that part which
is the being of man. This being was all beings (potentially); only, at
different times, it acts through different faculties. So far as it is
pure, and is not yet depraved, it wishes to constitute a man, and it
is indeed a man that it constitutes; for to form a man is better (than
to form a brute), and it does what is best. It also forms guardians
of the superior order, but such as are still conformable to the being
constituent of manhood. The (intellectual) Man, who is anterior to this
being, is of a nature still more like that of the guardians, or rather,
he is already a divinity. The guardian attached to a divinity is an
image of him, as the sense-man is the image of the intellectual man
from whom he depends; for the principle to which man directly attaches
himself must not be considered as his divinity. There is a difference
here, similar to that existing between the souls, though they all
belong to the same order.[86] Besides, those guardians whom Plato
simply calls "guardians" (demons), should be called guardian-like, or
"demonic" beings.[87] Last, when the superior Soul accompanies the
inferior soul which has chosen the condition of a brute, the inferior
soul which was bound to the superior soul--even when she constituted
a man--develops the ("seminal) reason" of the animal (whose condition
she has chosen); for she possesses that "reason" in herself; it is her
inferior actualization.
ANIMAL SEMINAL REASONS MAY BE CONTRARY TO SOUL'S NATURE; THOUGH NOT TO
THE SOUL HERSELF.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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