Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
All other Guardians have a similar constitution. Each of them desires,
and causes the acquisition of the good he is destined to procure; that
is the characteristic they have in common with Love. Neither could they
ever attain satisfaction; they still desire some particular good. The
result of this is that the men who here below are good are inspired
by the love of the true, absolute Good, and not by the love of such
and such a particular good.[142] Those who are subordinated to divers
Guardians are successively subordinated to such or such a Guardian;
they let the simple and pure love of the absolute Good rest within
themselves, while they see to it that their actions are presided over
by another Guardian, that is, another power of their soul, which is
immediately superior to that which directs them, or is active within
them.[143] As to the men who, driven by evil impulses, desire evil
things, they seem to have chained down all the loves in their souls,
just as, by false opinions, they darken the right reason which is
innate within them. Thus all the loves implanted in us by nature,
and which conform to nature, are all good; those that belong to the
inferior part of the soul are inferior in rank and power; those that
belong to the superior part are superior; all belong to the being of
the soul. As to the loves which are contrary to nature, they are the
passions of strayed souls, having nothing essential or substantial; for
they are not engendered by the pure Soul; they are the fruits of the
faults of the soul which produces them according to her vicious habits
and dispositions.
RIGHT THOUGHTS POSSESS REAL EXISTENCE.
In general, we might admit that the true goods which are possessed by
the soul when she acts conformably to her nature, by applying herself
to things determined (by reason), constitute real being; that the
others, on the contrary, are not engendered by the very action of
the soul, and are only passions.[144] Likewise, false intellections
lack real being, such as belongs to true intellections, which are
eternal and determinate, possessing simultaneously the intellectual
act, the intelligible existence and essence; and this latter not
only in general, but in each real intelligible being (manifesting?)
Intelligence in each idea. As to us, we must acknowledge that we
possess only intellection and the intelligible; we do not possess them
together (or completely), but only in general; and hence comes our love
for generalities. Our conceptions, indeed, usually trend towards the
general. It is only by accident that we conceive something particular;
when, for instance, we conceive that some particular triangle's angles
amount to two right angles, it is only as a result of first having
conceived that the triangle in general possesses this property.
JUPITER, THE GREAT CHIEF, OR THIRD GOD, IS THE SOUL, OR VENUS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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