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
But why should these Animals (devoid of reason) exist in the divine
Intelligence? We might understand that animals endowed with reason
might be found within it; but does this multitude of irrational animals
seem at all admirable? Does it not rather seem something unworthy of
the divine Intelligence? Evidently the essence which is one must be
also manifold, since it is posterior to the Unity which is absolutely
simple; otherwise, instead of being inferior to it, it would fuse
with it. Being posterior to that Unity, it could not be more simple,
and must therefore be less so. Now as the unity was the One who is
excellent, essence had to be less unitary, since multiplicity is the
characteristic of inferiority. But why should essence not be merely
the "pair" (instead of the manifold)? Neither of the elements of the
Pair could any longer be absolutely one, and each would itself become a
further pair; and we might point out the same thing of each of the new
elements (in which each element of the primary Pair would have split
up). Besides, the first Pair contains both movement and stability; it
is also intelligence and perfect life. The character of Intelligence
is not to be one, but to be universal; it therefore contains all the
particular intelligences; it is all the intelligences, and at the
same time it is something greater than all. It possesses life not as
a single soul, but as a universal Soul, having the superior power of
producing individual souls. It is besides the universal living Organism
(or, Animal); consequently, it should not contain man alone (but also
all the other kinds of animals); otherwise, man alone would exist upon
the earth.
MANY ANIMALS ARE NOT SO IRRATIONAL AS DIFFERENT.
9. It may be objected that Intelligence might (well) contain the
ideas of animals of a higher order. But how can it contain the ideas
of animals that are vile, or entirely without reason? For we should
consider vile every animal devoid of reason and intelligence, since it
is to these faculties that those who possess them owe their nobility.
It is doubtless difficult to understand how things devoid of reason
and intelligence can exist in the divine Intelligence, in which are
all beings, and from which they all proceed. But before beginning the
discussion of this question, let us assume the following verities as
granted: Man here below is not what is man in the divine Intelligence,
any more than the other animals. Like them, in a higher form, he dwells
within (the divine Intelligence); besides, no being called reasonable
may be found within it, for it is only here below that reason is
employed; on high the only acts are those superior to discursive
reason.[88]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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