Plotinus ENNEADS - THE SIXTH ENNEAD Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

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THE SIXTH ENNEAD:   1) ON THE KINDS OF BEING,   2) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙ,   3) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙΙ,   4) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT,   5) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT ΙΙ,   6) ON NUMBERS,   7) HOW THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE IDEAL-FORMS CAME INTO BEING: AND UPON THE GOOD,   8) ON FREE-WILL AND THE WILL OF THE ONE,   9) ON THE GOOD, OR THE ONE

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7. Now if we do not mean anything by Relation but are victims of words, none of the relations mentioned can exist: Relation will be a notion void of content.

Suppose however that we do possess ourselves of objective truth when in comparing two points of time we pronounce one prior, or posterior, to the other, that priority does entail something distinct from the objects to which it refers; admit an objective truth behind the relation of left and right: does this apply also to magnitudes, and is the relation exhibiting excess and deficiency also something distinct from the quantities involved?

Now one thing is double of another quite apart from our speech or thought; one thing possesses and another is possessed before we notice the fact; equals do not await our comparison but — and this applies to Quality as well as Quantity — rest upon an identity existing between the objects compared: in all the conditions in which we assert Relation the mutual relation exists over and above the objects; we perceive it as already existent; our knowledge is directed upon a thing, there to be known — a clear testimony to the reality of Relation.

In these circumstances we can no longer put the question of its existence. We have simply to distinguish: sometimes the relation subsists while the objects remain unaltered and even apart; sometimes it depends upon their combination; sometimes, while they remain unchanged, the relation utterly ceases, or, as happens with right and near, becomes different. These are the facts which chiefly account for the notion that Relation has no reality in such circumstances.

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