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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
This Part: 128 Pages
Page 112
27. But what is that whose entry supplies every such need?
Some Idea, we maintain. There is a Form to which Matter aspires: to soul, moral excellence is this Form.
But is this Form a good to the thing as being apt to it, does the striving aim at the apt?
No: the aptest would be the most resemblant to the thing itself, but that, however sought and welcomed, does not suffice for the good: the good must be something more: to be a good to another a thing must have something beyond aptness; that only can be adopted as the good which represents the apt in its better form and is best to what is best in the quester’s self, to that which the quester tends potentially to be.
A thing is potentially that to which its nature looks; this, obviously, it lacks; what it lacks, of its better, is its good. Matter is of all that most in need; its next is the lowest Form; Form at lowest is just one grade higher than Matter. If a thing is a good to itself, much more must its perfection, its Form, its better, be a good to it; this better, good in its own nature, must be good also to the quester whose good it procures.
But why should the Form which makes a thing good be a good to that thing? As being most appropriate?
No: but because it is, itself, a portion of the Good. This is why the least alloyed and nearest to the good are most at peace within themselves.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plotinus/enneads-6b.asp?pg=112
