Plotinus ENNEADS - THE FOURTH ENNEAD Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

Plotinus Resources OnLine and in Print

» Contents of this Ennead

THE FOURTH ENNEAD:   1) ON THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL,   2) ON THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL II,   3) PROBLEMS OF THE SOUL,   4) PROBLEMS OF THE SOUL II,   5) PROBLEMS OF THE SOUL III - “ON SIGHT”,   6) PERCEPTION AND MEMORY,   7) THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL,   8) THE SOUL’S DESCENT INTO BODY,   9) ARE ALL SOULS ONE?

129 pages - You are on Page 28

10. In view of all this we must now work back from the items to the unit, and consider the entire scheme as one enduring thing.

We ascend from air, light, sun — or, moon and light and sun — in detail, to these things as constituting a total — though a total of degrees, primary, secondary, tertiary. Thence we come to the [kosmic] Soul, always the one undiscriminated entity. At this point in our survey we have before us the over-world and all that follows upon it. That suite [the lower and material world] we take to be the very last effect that has penetrated to its furthest reach.

Our knowledge of the first is gained from the ultimate of all, from the very shadow cast by the fire, because this ultimate [the material world] itself receives its share of the general light, something of the nature of the Forming-Idea hovering over the outcast that at first lay in blank obscurity. It is brought under the scheme of reason by the efficacy of soul whose entire extension latently holds this rationalizing power. As we know, the Reason-Principles carried in animal seed fashion and shape living beings into so many universes in the small. For whatsoever touches soul is moulded to the nature of soul’s own Real-Being.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Plotinus - FOURTH 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-4.asp?pg=28