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Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.
Plotinus Resources OnLine and in Print
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» Contents of this Ennead
129 pages - You are on Page 40
20. Here a question rises to which we must find an answer: whether these and the other powers which we call “parts” of the Soul are situated, all, in place; or whether some have place and standpoint, others not; or whether again none are situated in place.
The matter is difficult: if we do not allot to each of the parts of the Soul some form of Place, but leave all unallocated — no more within the body than outside it — we leave the body soulless, and are at a loss to explain plausibly the origin of acts performed by means of the bodily organs: if, on the other hand, we suppose some of those phases to be [capable of situation] in place but others not so, we will be supposing that those parts to which we deny place are ineffective in us, or, in other words, that we do not possess our entire soul.
This simply shows that neither the soul entire nor any part of it may be considered to be within the body as in a space: space is a container, a container of body; it is the home of such things as consist of isolated parts, things, therefore, in which at no point is there an entirety; now, the soul is not a body and is no more contained than containing.
Neither is it in body as in some vessel: whether as vessel or as place of location, the body would remain, in itself, unensouled. If we are to think of some passing-over from the soul — that self-gathered thing — to the containing vessel, then soul is diminished by just as much as the vessel takes.
Space, again, in the strict sense is unembodied, and is not, itself, body; why, then, should it need soul?
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/plotinus/enneads-4.asp?pg=40
