Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

How could it ever be considered pious to claim that divine Providence does not extend to sense-objects, or at least interests itself only in some of them (the spiritual men, not...

19. Must we consider that (in the soul), the indivisible and the divisible are identical, as if they were mingled together? Or should we consider the distinction between the ind...

The soul and the exterior object do not therefore suffice (to explain sensation); for there would be nothing that suffers. There must therefore be a third term that suffers, tha...

How could that part of the soul that is superior to sensation and passion remain unalterable, while admitting vice, false opinions, and ignorance (or folly); when it has desires...

10. Do not seek to see this Principle by the aid of other things; otherwise, instead of seeing Him himself, you will see no more than His image. Try rather to conceive the natur...

15. The objects that concentrate the rays of the sun, are themselves visible, by receiving from the fire of sensation what takes fire in their hearth. They appear because the im...

15. We still have to solve one question bearing on the above discussion. If eternity relate to Intelligence, and time to the Soul--for we have stated that the existence of time...

That the soul, on leaving the intelligible world, brings away with her memories thereof, implies that even in the (intelligible) world she to a certain degree already possessed...

We have therefore two points to examine: we first have to explain that if we do attribute memory to the stars, it is only in a sense agreeing with our former statements, and not...

Since the idea of fire, for instance, is not in matter, let us imagine matter serving as subject for the elements. The idea of fire, without itself descending into matter, will...

1. Since he who rises to the contemplation of the intelligible world, and who conceives the beauty of true intelligence, can also, as we have pointed out, by intuition grasp the...

If there were no body, the soul could not have any procession, since the body is the natural locality of her development. As the soul must extend, she will beget a receiving loc...

15. But how did the body approach the universal Soul? As this body had an aptitude for participation in the Soul, it received that for which it was fit; now it was disposed to r...

It was to express this idea strikingly that Plato[231] represents the demiurgic creator as admiring his handiwork, which would lead us also to admire the beauty both of the mode...

37. The universe therefore (contains all that it needs), and rejects (or wastes) nothing. Study, therefore, the fire, and all the other things considered capable of action. Sati...

8. When light emanates from a body it is easy to tell when it shines, because the location of that body is known. But if a being be immaterial, if it have no need of a body, if...

Thus matter is a shapeless image, into which enter, and out of which issue the images of beings. These appear in it precisely because matter has no shape, though they seem to pr...

1. Is it because the body of the universe is so great that the Soul is everywhere present in the universe, though being naturally divisible in (human) bodies? Or it is by hersel...

Indeed, that which is identical in things other than the One, may no doubt be similar to the One, but cannot be the One. The One must exist alone in itself, thus to be grasped i...

2. Therefore intelligible entities must not be regarded as exterior to Intelligence, nor as impressions formed in it. Nor must we deny it the intimate possession of truth. Other...

Doubtless we will have to acknowledge that there are affections which pass from the body into the soul; but there are also affections which belong exclusively to the soul, becau...

1. Above[161] we suggested the question whether it be possible to see without some medium such as the air or a diaphanous body[162]; we shall now try to consider it. It has alre...

(Gnostics) admit that the Divinity interests Himself in men. How then could He (as they insist), neglect the world that contains them? Could this be the case because He lacked t...

Nor should the world be considered badly made, merely because we suffer so much therein. This idea results from entertaining unjustifiable expectations of its perfections, and f...

If such be the relation of the universal Soul to the other souls, the universal Soul, whose parts are such, will not belong to any particular being, but will subsist in herself....

7. It might be asked whether the withdrawal of the object from which light emanates abandons the light to destruction, or does the light follow the source into withdrawal? This...

6. (5). The purpose of action is to contemplate, and to possess the contemplated object. The object or activity, therefore, is contemplation. It seeks to achieve indirectly what...

[289] Between the sense-world, and the intelligible world, see iv. 3.5-8; v. 2.3. Plotinos is followed by Jamblichus and Damascius, but Proclus and Hermias denied that the soul...