Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods — John Shaqi
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
INTELLIGENCE CONTAINS THE INFINITE AS SIMULTANEOUSNESS OF ONE AND MANY
AND AS FRIENDSHIP.
14. By intellectual examples we can understand the nature of
Intelligence, and see that it could not be a unity which does not admit
any kind of difference. As example, consider the ("seminal) reason" of
a plant, and that of an animal. If it be only a unity, without any kind
of variety, it is not even a "reason," and what is born will be no more
than matter. This "reason" must therefore contain all the organs; and,
while embracing all matter, it must not leave any part of it to remain
identical with any other. For instance, the face does not form a single
mass; it contains the nose and the eyes. Nor is even the nose something
simple; it contains different parts whose variety make of it an organ;
if it were reduced to a state of absolute simplicity, it would be no
more than a mass. Thus Intelligence contains the infinite, because
it is simultaneously one and manifold; not indeed like a house, but
as is a ("seminal) reason" which is manifold interiorly. It contains
within, therefore, a sort of figure (or scheme) or even a picture, on
which are interiorly drawn or inscribed its powers and thoughts; their
division does not take place exteriorly, for it is entirely interior.
Thus the universal living Organism embraces other living beings,
within which may be discovered still smaller living beings, and still
smaller powers, and so on till we arrive at the "atomic form."[98]
All these forms are distinguished from each other by their division,
without ever having been confounded together, though they all occur in
the constitution of a single unity. Thus exists in the intelligible
world that union (by Empedocles) called "friendship"; but such union
is very different from that which exists in the sense-world.[163] In
fact, the latter is only the image of the first, because it is formed
of completely disparate elements. Veritable union however consists
in forming but a single (thing) without admitting of any separation
between (elements). Here below, however, objects are separated from
each other.
B. A STUDY OF THE GOOD.
ALL SOULS ARE UNITED BY THEIR HIGHEST, WITH INTELLIGENCE SHINING DOWN
FROM THE PEAK THEY FORM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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