Plotinus ENNEADS - THE SECOND ENNEAD Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

Plotinus Resources OnLine and in Print

» Contents of this Ennead

THE SECOND ENNEAD:   1) ON THE KOSMOS OR ON THE HEAVENLY SYSTEM,   2) THE HEAVENLY CIRCUIT,   3) ARE THE STARS CAUSES?,   4) MATTER IN ITS TWO KINDS,   5) ON POTENTIALITY AND ACTUALITY,   6) QUALITY AND FORM-IDEA,   7) ON COMPLETE TRANSFUSION,   8) WHY DISTANT OBJECTS APPEAR SMALL,   9) AGAINST THOSE THAT AFFIRM THE CREATOR OF THE KOSMOS AND THE KOSMOS ITSELF TO BE EVIL - “AGAINST THE GNOSTICS”

126 pages - You are on Page 85

When there is an increase in the space occupied, nothing refutes the explanation — however unsatisfying — that this is a necessary consequence of two bodies bringing to a common stock their magnitude equally with their other attributes: size is as permanent as any other property; and, exactly as from the blending of qualities there results a new form of thing, the combination of the two, so we find a new magnitude; the blending gives us a magnitude representing each of the two. But at this point the others will answer, “If you mean that substance lies side by side with substance and mass with mass, each carrying its quantum of magnitude, you are at one with us: if there were complete transfusion, one substance sinking its original magnitude in the other, we would have no longer the case of two lines joined end to end by their terminal points and thus producing an increased extension; we would have line superimposed upon line with, therefore, no increase.”

But a lesser quantity permeates the entire extent of a larger; the smallest is sunk in the greatest; transfusion is exhibited unmistakably. In certain cases it is possible to pretend that there is no total penetration but there are manifest examples leaving no room for the pretence. In what they say of the spreading out of masses they cannot be thought very plausible; the extension would have to be considerable indeed in the case of a very small quantity [to be in true mixture with a very large mass]; for they do not suggest any such extension by change as that of water into air.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Plotinus - SECOND ENNEAD

Plotinus Home Page / Enneads Contents

Plato Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/plotinus/enneads-2.asp?pg=85