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◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter Va

“In the next place, let us direct our attention to the solution of your inquiries. There is, therefore, the good itself which is beyond essence, and there is that good which subsists according to essence; I mean the essence which is most an…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter Vb

“Again, however, according to another mode of considering the subject, it is necessary to ascribe to the Gods the whole of that which is united, of whatever kind it may be; that which is firmly established in itself, and which is the cause o…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VI

“What, therefore, shall we say concerning the media? I think, indeed, that from what has been before said, they will be manifest to every one; for these give completion to the indivisible connexion of the extremes. Nevertheless, it is necess…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VII

“Of the extremes, therefore, one is supreme, transcendent, and perfect; but the other is last in dignity, deficient, and more imperfect. And the former, indeed, is capable of accomplishing all things at once, uniformly in an instant; but the…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIb

“Hence, through these things such a corporeal-formed division as you introduce, is demonstrated to be false. It is, indeed, especially necessary not to propose any thing of this kind; but if this should appear to you to be requisite, yet yo…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IXa

“I consider you, therefore, as asking, for it is your inquiry, “ Why, since the Gods dwell in the heavens alone, there are invocations by theurgists of terrestrial and subterranean Gods? ” For 45 what you assert in the beginning is not true…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVII

“We will exchange, therefore, this division for the doubt which may be adduced by you against the present opinion. “ For ,” it may be said by you, “ how, conformably to what we assert, can the sun and moon, and the visible natures in the hea…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVIIIa

“Your next inquiry doubts, “ how some of the Gods are beneficent, but others malefic .” This opinion, therefore, is assumed from the predictors of nativities. It is, however, entirely remote from the truth. For all the Gods are good, and i…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XIXa

“In the next place, therefore, we shall answer your question, “ What it is which conjoins the Gods that have a body in the heavens with the incorporeal Gods. ” What this is, therefore, is evident from what has been before said. For 72 if t…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XIXb

“And secondary genera, indeed, remain with invariable sameness in the one of such as are primary; but the primary impart from themselves union to the secondary genera, and all of them possess in each other the communion of an indissoluble co…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter V

“Moreover, that which purifies souls is perfect in the Gods; but in archangels it is anagogic. Angels alone dissolve the bond of generation. Dæmons draw souls down into nature; but heroes lead them to a providential attention to sensible wor…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XII

“It appears, therefore, that the divination of oracles accords with all the hypotheses which we have before adduced concerning prediction. For if a power of this kind was inseparable from the nature of places, and of the bodies which are the…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVI

“Descending, however, to particulars, the soul of animals, the dæmon who presides over them, the air, the motion of the air, and the circulation of the heavens, variously change the viscera, [74] 156 conformably to the will of the Gods. But…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVIIa

“In the next place you inquire “ concerning the mode of divination, what it is, and what the quality is by which it is distinguished ,” which we have already explained, both generally and particularly. But you, in the first place, represent…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XIX

“But neither does the cause [of the energies] of more excellent natures subsist as a certain middle instrument, [77] nor does he who invokes operate through him who prophesies; for to assert these things is impious. And it is much more true…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XXVIIIb

“The variety, however, of such like energies, and the composition of a multitude of material powers, are not only entirely separated from divine fabrication, but also from natural production. For nature produces her proper works collectivel…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter II

“But we sometimes see that take place which is now proposed to be considered. For it happens that spirits are commanded [to do this or that] who do not use a reason of their own, and have not the principle of judgment. Nor does this occur ir…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VII

“The discussion therefore requires that we should show what it is through which sacrifices are effective of things, and are suspended from the Gods, the precedaneous causes of 234 effects. If then we say that the communion of similar powers,…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter Xa

“We, however, admit all these assertions; physical essences, indeed, being coexcited as in one animal, according to aptitude or sympathy, as in another respect being subjects, and following and being subservient to the cause of the efficacy…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVIII

“According to another division, therefore, the numerous herd [or the great mass] of men is arranged under nature, is governed by physical powers, looks downward to the works of nature, gives completion to the administration of Fate, and to t…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter II

“Hear, therefore, the intellectual interpretation of symbols, according to the conceptions of the Egyptians; at the same time removing from your imagination and your ears the image of things symbolical, but elevating yourself to intellectual…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter III

“Since, however, every part of the heavens, every sign of the zodiac, [123] all the motion of the heavens, every period of time according to which the world is moved, and all things contained in the wholes of the universe, receive the powers…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter I

“Leaving, therefore, these particulars, you wish in the next place that I would unfold to you “ What the Egyptians conceive the first cause to be; whether intellect, or above intellect; whether alone, or subsisting with some other or others;…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter II

“Prior to truly existing beings and total principles [or principles that rank as wholes], there is one God, prior to [that deity who is generally believed to be] the first God and king, [133] immoveable, and abiding in the solitude of his ow…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter III

“According to another order, however, he arranges the God Emeph [134] prior to, and as the leader of, the celestial Gods. And he says that this God is an intellect, itself intellectually perceiving itself, and converting intellections to its…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VI

“You say, therefore, “ that according to many of the Egyptians, that which is in our power depends on the motion of the stars .” What the truth, however, is respecting this, it is necessary to unfold to you from the Hermaic conceptions. For…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VII

“From these things, therefore, it is easy to answer your next question. For the peculiar dæmon does not rule over one of the parts in us, but, in short, over all the parts at once, and extends to every principle within us, in the same manner…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII

“Afterwards, abandoning these particulars, you pass on to the opinion of philosophy. But you subvert the whole hypothesis concerning the peculiar dæmon. For if [as you say] “ this dæmon is a part of the soul ,” such, for instance, as the int…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IX

“After this, therefore, you also mention another disquisition concerning the peculiar dæmon, which represents “ some as worshiping two, but others three, dæmons of this kind .” The whole of this, however, is erroneous. For it is a false mode…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter X

“And this order is adapted to dæmons; one part of it being allied to those that are invoked; another being derived from more ancient causes; and the third part effecting a common completion from both the others. Do not, therefore, assimilate…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIb

“Or we say that the good which subsists in us may be considered as a habit, in consequence of subsisting in a subject; the next to this ranks as essence, and a part of essence, I mean the good which ranks among forms; and the good which is b…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIi

“This, however, our philanthropic lord and father Jupiter understanding, that we might not be entirely deprived of communion with the Gods, has given us observation through sacred arts , by which we have at hand sufficient assistance.” For t…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIj

“the connective, perfective, demiurgic, assimilative, and such others as are celebrated posterior to these; so that all are in all, and yet each is at the same time separate and distinct. “Indeed we obtain this knowledge of their union and…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIo

“In the next place, departing from intellect, and descending into reasoning and dianoia, it no longer apprehended real beings by simple intuitions, but syllogistically and transitively, proceeding from one thing to another, from propositions…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIw

“Cathartic virtue, therefore, alone must be called the salvation of souls; since this cuts off, and vehemently obliterates, material natures, and the passions which adhere to us from generation; separates the soul and leads it to intellect;…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIz

“και ων εννοουμεν αγαθων τα σεμνοτατα, και αγιωτατα, και πρωτουργα, και ονοματα και πραγματα αυτῳ ανατιθεντας ειδεναι βεβαιως, οτι μηδεν ανατεθεικαμεν αξιον. αρκει δε ημιν εις συγγνωμην, το μηδεν εχειν εκεινων υπερτερον. Simplic. in Epict…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII}

“The nature of the one , as it is all-receptive , and all-productive ( πανδεχης και παντοφυης ) exhibits in itself a certain representation and indication of multitude; for it is all things prior to all. 40 . For the Gods are essentialized…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII

“Ταις ενεργειαις της μελῳδιας συμπασχειν ημων αντικρυς τας ψυχας, την συγγενειαν ωσπερ επιγινωσκουσας ——et, ποτε μεν εις ησυχιαν και κατασολην τρεπεσθαι, ποτε δε εις οἱσρον και ενθυσιασμον. And, in the last place, see Plato in his Io, and A…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 30

“Section 4 4. But this science, this Dialectic essential to all the three classes alike, what, in sum, is it? It is the Method, or Discipline, that brings with it the power of pronouncing with final truth upon the nature and relation of thin…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 36

“Section 3 3. Now if we draw no distinction as to kinds of life, everything that lives will be capable of happiness, and those will be effectively happy who possess that one common gift of which every living thing is by nature receptive. We…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 37

“Section 4 4. If, then, the perfect life is within human reach, the man attaining it attains happiness: if not, happiness must be made over to the gods, for the perfect life is for them alone. But since we hold that happiness is for human be…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 57

“Section 7 7. But if we are to consider only the present and may not call in the past to make the total, why do we not reckon so in the case of time itself, where, in fact, we do not hesitate to add the past to the present and call the total…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 68

“Section 7 7. Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for t…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 77

“Section 2 2. For the moment let us define the nature of the Good as far as the immediate purpose demands. The Good is that on which all else depends, towards which all Existences aspire as to their source and their need, while Itself is wit…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 79

“Section 4 4. The bodily Kind, in that it partakes of Matter is an evil thing. What form is in bodies is an untrue-form: they are without life: by their own natural disorderly movement they make away with each other; they are hindrances to t…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 81 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. If this be so, how do we explain the teaching that evils can never pass away but "exist of necessity," that "while evil has no place in the divine order, it haunts mortal nature and this place for ever"? Does this mean that h…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 111

“Section 8 8. Soul, then, in the same way, is intent upon a task of its own; alike in its direct course and in its divagation it is the cause of all by its possession of the Thought of the First Principle: thus a Law of Justice goes with all…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 116

“Section 13 13. Of phenomena of this sphere some derive from the Kosmic Circuit and some not: we must take them singly and mark them off, assigning to each its origin. The gist of the whole matter lies in the consideration that Soul governs…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 118

“Section 15 15. According to Plato, lots and choice play a part [in the determination of human conditions] before the Spindle of Necessity is turned; that once done, only the Spindle-destiny is valid; it fixes the chosen conditions irretriev…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 121

“Section 18 18. Are the evils in the Universe necessary because it is of later origin than the Higher Sphere? Perhaps rather because without evil the All would be incomplete. For most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe- much as the…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 123

“Section 1 1. By common agreement of all that have arrived at the conception of such a Kind, what is known as Matter is understood to be a certain base, a recipient of Form-Ideas. Thus far all go the same way. But departure begins with the a…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 127

“Section 5 5. It may be objected that the Intellectual-Principle possesses its content in an eternal conjunction so that the two make a perfect unity, and that thus there is no Matter there. But that argument would equally cancel the Matter…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 131

“Section 9 9. But how can we conceive a thing having existence without having magnitude? We have only to think of things whose identity does not depend on their quantity- for certainly magnitude can be distinguished from existence as can man…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 148

“Section 3 3. The Whiteness, therefore, in a human being is, clearly, to be classed not as a quality but as an activity- the act of a power which can make white; and similarly what we think of as qualities in the Intellectual Realm should be…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 162 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. And, what are we to think of the new forms of being they introduce- their "Exiles" and "Impressions" and "Repentings"? If all comes to states of the Soul- "Repentance" when it has undergone a change of purpose; "Impressions"…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 165 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. Wealth and poverty, and all inequalities of that order, are made ground of complaint. But this is to ignore that the Sage demands no equality in such matters: he cannot think that to own many things is to be richer or that th…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 169

“Section 13 13. Those, then, that censure the constitution of the Kosmos do not understand what they are doing or where this audacity leads them. They do not understand that there is a successive order of Primals, Secondaries, Tertiaries and…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 179

“Section 3 3. "Atoms" or "elements"- it is in either case an absurdity, an impossibility, to hand over the universe and its contents to material entities, and out of the disorderly swirl thus occasioned to call order, reasoning, and the gove…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 180

“Section 4 4. Another theory: The Universe is permeated by one Soul, Cause of all things and events; every separate phenomenon as a member of a whole moves in its place with the general movement; all the various causes spring into action fro…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 192

“Section 5 5. Now, once Happiness is possible at all to Souls in this Universe, if some fail of it, the blame must fall not upon the place but upon the feebleness insufficient to the staunch combat in the one arena where the rewards of excel…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 193

“Section 6 6. As for the disregard of desert- the good afflicted, the unworthy thriving- it is a sound explanation no doubt that to the good nothing is evil and to the evil nothing can be good: still the question remains why should what esse…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 199

“Section 12 12. Suppose this Universe were the direct creation of the Reason-Principle applying itself, quite unchanged, to Matter, retaining, that is, the hostility to partition which it derives from its Prior, the Intellectual Principle- t…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 210 (part 1)

“Section 4 4. If man were all of one piece- I mean, if he were nothing more than a made thing, acting and acted upon according to a fixed nature- he could be no more subject to reproach and punishment than the mere animals. But as the sche…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 211 (part 2)

“Thus a patient following his treatment is himself an agent and yet is acting in accordance with the doctor's method inspired by the art concerned with the causes of health and sickness: what one does against the laws of health is one's act,…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 224

“Section 3 3. That Love is a Hypostasis [a "Person"] a Real-Being sprung from a Real-Being- lower than the parent but authentically existent- is beyond doubt. For the parent-Soul was a Real-Being sprung directly from the Act of the Hypostasi…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 226

“Section 5 5. But what is the Nature of this Spirit- of the Supernals in general? The Spirit-Kind is treated in the Symposium where, with much about the others, we learn of Eros- Love- born to Penia- Poverty- and Poros- Possession- who is so…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 227 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. What then, in sum, is to be thought of Love and of his "birth" as we are told of it? Clearly we have to establish the significance, here, of Poverty and Possession, and show in what way the parentage is appropriate: we have a…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 227 (part 2)

“We are forced to assume that there is a Matter of the Intellectual Order, and that Beings partaking of it are thereby enabled to enter into the lower Matter, the corporeal.…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 238 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. the Intellectual Essence, wholly of the order of Ideal-form, must be taken as impassive has been already established. But Matter also is an incorporeal, though after a mode of its own; we must examine, therefore, how this sta…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 240

“Section 8 8. It is a general principle that, to be modified, an object must be opposed in faculty, and in quality to the forces that enter and act upon it. Thus where heat is present, the change comes by something that chills, where damp by…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 247

“Section 15 15. Now the objects attracting the sun-rays to themselves- illuminated by a fire of the sense-order- are necessarily of the sense-order; there is perceptibility because there has been a union of things at once external to each ot…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 248

“Section 16 16. An Ideal-Principle approaches and leads Matter towards some desired dimension, investing this non-existent underlie with a magnitude from itself which never becomes incorporate- for Matter, if it really incorporated magnitude…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 256

“Section 4 4. We must, however, avoid thinking of it as an accidental from outside grafted upon that Nature: it is native to it, integral to it. It is discerned as present essentially in that Nature like everything else that we can predicate…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 258 (part 2)

“But the conception of Eternity demands something which is in its nature complete without sequence; it is not satisfied by something measured out to any remoter time or even by something limitless, but, in its limitless reach, still having t…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 267

“Section 1 1. Supposing we played a little before entering upon our serious concern and maintained that all things are striving after Contemplation, looking to Vision as their one end- and this, not merely beings endowed with reason but even…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 272

“Section 6 6. Action, thus, is set towards contemplation and an object of contemplation, so that even those whose life is in doing have seeing as their object; what they have not been able to achieve by the direct path, they hope to come at…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 273

“Section 7 7. Certain Principles, then, we may take to be established- some self-evident, others brought out by our treatment above: All the forms of Authentic Existence spring from vision and are a vision. Everything that springs from these…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 280 (part 1)

“Section 3 3. (A)... How, then, does Unity give rise to Multiplicity? By its omnipresence: there is nowhere where it is not; it occupies, therefore, all that is; at once, it is manifold- or, rather, it is all things. If it were simply an…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 280 (part 2)

“But intellection does not mean self-ownership; it means turning the gaze towards the Primal: now the act of intellection is itself the Primal Act, and there is therefore no place for any earlier one. The Being projecting this Act transcend…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 285 (part 2)

“The magnitude present in any mass is definitely one thing, yet its identity from part to part does not imply any such community as would entail common experience; within that identity there is diversity, for it is a condition only, not the…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 293

“Section 6 6. But how comes it that while the All-Soul has produced a kosmos, the soul of the particular has not, though it is of the one ideal Kind and contains, it too, all things in itself? We have indicated that a thing may enter and dwe…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 295 (part 1)

“Section 8 8. These considerations, amounting to the settlement of the question, are not countered by the phenomenon of sympathy; the response between soul and soul is due to the mere fact that all spring from that self-same soul [the next…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 297

“Section 10 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 constitutin…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 304

“Section 17 17. Various considerations explain why the Souls going forth from the Intellectual proceed first to the heavenly regions. The heavens, as the noblest portion of sensible space, would border with the least exalted of the Intellect…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 307 (part 2)

“Because the soul is not seen and the body is: we perceive the body, and by its movement and sensation we understand that it is ensouled, and we say that it possesses a soul; to speak of residence is a natural sequence. If the soul were vis…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 314

“Section 27 27. But of what soul; of that which we envisage as the more divine, by which we are human beings, or that other which springs from the All? Memory must be admitted in both of these, personal memories and shared memories; and when…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 324

“Section 4 4. In that realm it has also vision, through the Intellectual-Principle, of The Good which does not so hold to itself as not to reach the soul; what intervenes between them is not body and therefore is no hindrance- and, indeed, w…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 329

“Section 9 9. But Zeus- ordering all, governor, guardian and disposer, possessor for ever of the kingly soul and the kingly intellect, bringing all into being by his providence, and presiding over all things as they come, administering all u…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 335

“Section 15 15. But there is a difficulty affecting this entire settlement: Eternity is characteristic of the Intellectual-Principle, time of the soul- for we hold that time has its substantial being in the activity of the soul, and springs…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 336

“Section 16 16. But if in the soul thing follows thing, if there is earlier and later in its productions, if it engenders or creates in time, then it must be looking towards the future; and if towards the future, then towards the past as wel…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 337

“Section 17 17. But how comes it that the intuitions and the Reason-Principles of the soul are not in the same timeless fashion within ourselves, but that here the later of order is converted into a later of time- bringing in all these doubt…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 338

“Section 18 18. There remains the question whether the body possesses any force of its own- so that, with the incoming of the soul, it lives in some individuality- or whether all it has is this Nature we have been speaking of, the superior p…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 339

“Section 19 19. Thus what we know as pleasure and pain may be identified: pain is our perception of a body despoiled, deprived of the image of the soul; pleasure our perception of the living frame in which the image of the soul is brought ba…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 340

“Section 20 20. As with bodily pain and pleasure so with the bodily desires; their origin, also, must be attributed to what thus stands midway, to that Nature we described as the corporeal. Body undetermined cannot be imagined to give rise t…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 351 (part 2)

“It is not to be thought that such beings engage themselves in human affairs in the sense of making men thieves, slave-dealers, burglars, temple-strippers, or debased effeminates practising and lending themselves to disgusting actions: that…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 355 (part 1)

“Section 35 35. But we must give some explanation of these powers. The matter requires a more definite handling. How can there be a difference of power between one triangular configuration and another? How can there be the exercise of po…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 358

“Section 38 38. Whatever springs automatically from the All out of that distinctive life of its own, and, in addition to that self-moving activity, whatever is due to some specific agency- for example, to prayers, simple or taking the form o…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 360

“Section 40 40. But magic spells; how can their efficacy be explained? By the reigning sympathy and by the fact in Nature that there is an agreement of like forces and an opposition of unlike, and by the diversity of those multitudinous powe…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 363

“Section 43 43. And the Proficient [the Sage], how does he stand with regard to magic and philtre-spells? In the soul he is immune from magic; his reasoning part cannot be touched by it, he cannot be perverted. But there is in him the unreas…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 377

“Section 2 2. But if perception does not go by impression, what is the process? The mind affirms something not contained within it: this is precisely the characteristic of a power- not to accept impression but, within its allotted sphere, to…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 394

“Section 10 10. (15) That the soul is of the family of the diviner nature, the eternal, is clear from our demonstration that it is not material: besides it has neither shape or colour nor is it tangible. But there are other proofs. Assuming…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 397

“Section 13 13. (18) But how does the soul enter into body from the aloofness of the Intellectual? There is the Intellectual-Principle which remains among the intellectual beings, living the purely intellective life; and this, knowing no imp…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 410

“Section 1 1. That the Soul of every individual is one thing we deduce from the fact that it is present entire at every point of the body- the sign of veritable unity- not some part of it here and another part there. In all sensitive beings…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 422 (part 2)

“But in soul the utterance is obscured, for soul is an image and must look to its own original: that Principle, on the contrary, looks to the First without mediation- thus becoming what it is- and has that vision not as from a distance but a…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 430

“Section 1 1. The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not all things; all things are its possession- running back, so to speak, to it- or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be. But a universe from an unbroke…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 441

“Section 9 9. In order, then, to know what the Divine Mind is, we must observe soul and especially its most God-like phase. One certain way to this knowledge is to separate first, the man from the body- yourself, that is, from your body- nex…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 442 (part 1)

“Section 10 10. This matter need not be elaborated at present: it suffices to say that if the created were all, these ultimates [the higher] need not exist: but the Supreme does include primals, the primals because the producers. In other…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 442 (part 2)

“Similarly the knowing principle itself cannot remain simplex, especially in the act of self-knowing: all silent though its self-perception be, it is dual to itself. Of course it has no need of minute self-handling since it has nothing to l…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 446

“Section 14 14. How, then, do we ourselves come to be speaking of it? No doubt we deal with it, but we do not state it; we have neither knowledge nor intellection of it. But in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold upon it?…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 482 (part 1)

“Section 4 4. To "live at ease" is There; and, to these divine beings, verity is mother and nurse, existence and sustenance; all that is not of process but of authentic being they see, and themselves in all: for all is transparent, nothing…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 488

“Section 10 10. This is why Zeus, although the oldest of the gods and their sovereign, advances first [in the Phaidros myth] towards that vision, followed by gods and demigods and such souls as are of strength to see. That Being appears befo…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 493

“Section 1 1. All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more than to the Intellectual. Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its co…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 496

“Section 4 4. But, soul reached, why need we look higher; why not make this The First? A main reason is that the Intellectual-Principle is at once something other and something more powerful than Soul and that the more powerful is in the nat…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 503

“Section 11 11. Now as to the arts and crafts and their productions: The imitative arts- painting, sculpture, dancing, pantomimic gesturing- are, largely, earth-based; on an earthly base; they follow models found in sense, since they copy fo…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 509

“Section 1 1. Philosophy at a very early stage investigated the number and character of the Existents. Various theories resulted: some declared for one Existent, others for a finite number, others again for an infinite number, while as regar…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 512 (part 1)

“Section 4 4. We are told that number is Quantity in the primary sense, number together with all continuous magnitude, space and time: these are the standards to which all else that is considered as Quantity is referred, including motion wh…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 516

“Section 9 9. It follows that in the cases specified above- agent, knowledge and the rest- the relation must be considered as in actual operation, and the Act and the Reason-Principle in the Act must be assumed to be real: in all other cases…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 520

“Section 13 13. With regard to Date: If "yesterday," "to-morrow," "last year" and similar terms denote parts of time, why should they not be included in the same genus as time? It would seem only reasonable to range under time the past, pres…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 530

“Section 23 23. As for Possession, if the term is used comprehensively, why are not all its modes to be brought under one category? Possession, thus, would include the quantum as possessing magnitude, the quale as possessing colour; it would…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 547 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. The above considerations- to which others, doubtless, might be added- suffice to show that these five are primary genera. But that they are the only primary genera, that there are no others, how can we be confident of this?…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 549 (part 1)

“Section 11 11. We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is contained in Being. How is what is termed the "dividing" effected- especially the dividing of the genera Being and unity? Is it the same division, or is it different…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 550

“Section 12 12. Enough upon that side of the question. But how does the perfection [goodness] of numbers, lifeless things, depend upon their particular unity? Just as all other inanimates find their perfection in their unity. If it should be…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 557

“Section 19 19. Having established our four primary genera, it remains for us to enquire whether each of them of itself alone produces species. And especially, can Being be divided independently, that is without drawing upon the other genera…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 560 (part 2)

“Similarly, this likeness of the Intellectual realm carries images, not of the creative element, but of the entities contained in that creator, including Man with every other living being: creator and created are alike living beings, though…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 565

“Section 4 4. What, then, we have to ask, is the constant element in the first three entities? What is it that identifies them with their inherent Substance? Is it the capacity to serve as a base? But Matter, we maintain, serves as the base…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 567

“Section 6 6. Granted, it may be urged, that these observations upon the nature of Substance are sound, we have not yet arrived at a statement of its essence. Our critic doubtless expects to see this "Sensible": but its essence, its characte…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 569

“Section 8 8. The division into elements must, in short, be abandoned, especially in regard to Sensible Substance, known necessarily by sense rather than by reason. We must no longer look for help in constituent parts, since such parts will…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 576

“Section 15 15. How far is it true that equality and inequality are characteristic of Quantity? Triangles, it is significant, are said to be similar rather than equal. But we also refer to magnitudes as similar, and the accepted connotation…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 577 (part 1)

“Section 16 16. When each of the entities bound up with the pseudo-substance is taken apart from the rest, the name of Quality is given to that one among them, by which without pointing to essence or quantity or motion we signify the distin…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 577 (part 2)

“But we refrain from assigning Soul to Sensible Substance, on the ground that we have already referred to Quality [which is Sensible] those affections of Soul which are related to body. On the contrary, Soul, conceived apart from affection…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 578

“Section 17 17. This procedure, if approved, will entail a distinction between psychic and bodily qualities, the latter belonging specifically to body. If we decide to refer all souls to the higher, we are still at liberty to perform for Sen…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 580

“Section 19 19. With Quality we have undertaken to group the dependent qualia, in so far as Quality is bound up with them; we shall not however introduce into this category the qualified objects [qua objects], that we may not be dealing with…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 582 (part 2)

“Even rejecting this distinction, we must accept as types of Motion knowledge and musical performance- in short, changes of condition: thus, alteration will come to be regarded as a species of Motion- namely, motion displacing.…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 588

“Section 27 27. What view are we to take of that which is opposed to Motion, whether it be Stability or Rest? Are we to consider it as a distinct genus, or to refer it to one of the genera already established? We should, no doubt, be well ad…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 610

“Section 3 3. If this principle is the Authentic Existent and holds unchanging identity, does not go forth from itself, is untouched by any process of becoming or, as we have said, by any situation in place, then it must be always self-gathe…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 614

“Section 7 7. To Real Being we go back, all that we have and are; to that we return as from that we came. Of what is There we have direct knowledge, not images or even impressions; and to know without image is to be; by our part in true know…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 625

“Section 5 5. What then is the veritable nature of Number? Is it an accompaniment upon each substance, something seen in the things as in a man we see one man, in a being one being and in the total of presentations the total of number? But h…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 632

“Section 12 12. We may be told that unity and monad have no real existence, that the only unity is some definite object that is one thing, so that all comes to an attitude of the mind towards things considered singly. But, to begin with, why…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 636 (part 2)

“When you enumerate two things- say, animal and beauty- each of these remains one thing; the number is your production; it lay within yourself; it is you that elaborate quantity, here the dyad. But when you declare virtue to be a Tetrad, yo…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 644

“Section 5 5. Man, thus, must be some Reason-Principle other than soul. But why should he not be some conjoint- a soul in a certain Reason-Principle- the Reason-Principle being, as it were, a definite activity which however could not exist w…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 645

“Section 6 6. But how can that higher soul have sense-perception? It is the perception of what falls under perception There, sensation in the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's perception of the sense-realm in its corresponde…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 649

“Section 10 10. But failure There? What can defensive horns serve to There? To sufficiency as living form, to completeness. That principle must be complete as living form, complete as Intellect, complete as life, so that if it is not to be o…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 651

“Section 12 12. Or take it another way: Since in our view this universe stands to that as copy to original, the living total must exist There beforehand; that is the realm of complete Being and everything must exist There. The sky There must…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 655

“Section 16 16. But even there we are not to remain always, in that beauty of the multiple; we must make haste yet higher, above this heaven of ours and even that; leaving all else aside we ask in awe "Who produced that realm and how?" Every…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 656

“Section 17 17. But in what mode are these secondaries, and Intellectual-Principle itself, within the First? They are not in the Filling Principle; they are not in the filled since before that moment it did not contain them. Giving need not…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 657 (part 1)

“Section 18 18. But in what way is the content of Intellectual-Principle participant in good? Is it because each member of it is an Idea or because of their beauty or how? Anything coming from The Good carries the image and type belonging…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 659

“Section 20 20. Since we are not entitled to make desire the test by which to decide on the nature and quality of the good, we may perhaps have recourse to judgement. We would apply the opposition of things- order, disorder; symmetry, irregu…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 661

“Section 22 22. That light known, then indeed we are stirred towards those Beings in longing and rejoicing over the radiance about them, just as earthly love is not for the material form but for the Beauty manifested upon it. Every one of th…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 667

“Section 28 28. Now to see what all this reasoning has established: Universally, what approaches as a good is a Form; Matter itself contains this good which is Form: are we to conclude that, if Matter had will, it would desire to be Form una…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 676

“Section 37 37. Those ascribing Intellection to the First have not supposed him to know the lesser, the emanant- though, indeed, some have thought it impossible that he should not know everything. But those denying his knowing of the lesser…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 677

“Section 38 38. And yet this "He Is" does not truly apply: the Supreme has no need of Being: even "He is good" does not apply since it indicates Being: the "is" should not suggest something predicated of another thing; it is to state identit…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 695 (part 2)

“For if the act of will springs from God Himself and is as it were His operation and the same will is identical with His essence, He must be self-established. He is not, therefore, "what He has happened to be" but what He has willed to be.…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 700 (part 2)

“Thus we must speak of God since we cannot tell Him as we would.…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 707 (part 2)

“Note, similarly, that, when we speak of this First as Cause, we are affirming something happening not to it but to us, the fact that we take from this Self-Enclosed: strictly we should put neither a This nor a That to it; we hover, as it we…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 15

“Section 11 11. In childhood the main activity is in the Couplement and there is but little irradiation from the higher principles of our being: but when these higher principles act but feebly or rarely upon us their action is directed towar…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 19 (part 2)

“So with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the Existences There, having no need of harmony, order or distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and, none the le…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 20

“Section 2 2. First, then, let us examine those good qualities by which we hold Likeness comes, and seek to establish what is this thing which, as we possess it, in transcription, is virtue but as the Supreme possesses it, is in the nature o…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 27

“Section 1 1. What art is there, what method, what discipline to bring us there where we must go? The Term at which we must arrive we may take as agreed: we have established elsewhere, by many considerations, that our journey is to the Good,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 28

“Section 2 2. The born lover, to whose degree the musician also may attain- and then either come to a stand or pass beyond- has a certain memory of beauty but, severed from it now, he no longer comprehends it: spellbound by visible lovelines…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 39

“Section 6 6. Now if happiness did indeed require freedom from pain, sickness, misfortune, disaster, it would be utterly denied to anyone confronted by such trials: but if it lies in the fruition of the Authentic Good, why turn away from thi…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 46

“Section 13 13. The characteristic activities are not hindered by outer events but merely adapt themselves, remaining always fine, and perhaps all the finer for dealing with the actual. When he has to handle particular cases and things, he m…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 49

“Section 16 16. Those that refuse to place the Sage aloft in the Intellectual Realm but drag him down to the accidental, dreading accident for him, have substituted for the Sage we have in mind another person altogether; they offer us a tole…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 62 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight; but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations of words and in all kinds of music, for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 64

“Section 3 3. And the soul includes a faculty peculiarly addressed to Beauty- one incomparably sure in the appreciation of its own, never in doubt whenever any lovely thing presents itself for judgement. Or perhaps the soul itself acts immed…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 70

“Section 9 9. And this inner vision, what is its operation? Newly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate splendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained- to the habit of remarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beaut…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 73

“Section 2 2. But the Universe outside; how is it aligned towards the Good? The soulless by direction toward Soul: Soul towards the Good itself, through the Intellectual-Principle. Everything has something of the Good, by virtue of possessin…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 74

“Section 3 3. But if life is a good, is there good for all that lives? No: in the vile, life limps: it is like the eye to the dim-sighted; it fails of its task. But if the mingled strand of life is to us, though entwined with evil, still in…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 78

“Section 3 3. If such be the Nature of Beings and of That which transcends all the realm of Being, Evil cannot have place among Beings or in the Beyond-Being; these are good. There remains, only, if Evil exist at all, that it be situate in t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 83

“Section 8 8. But there will still be some to deny that it is through this Matter that we ourselves become evil. They will say that neither ignorance nor wicked desires arise in Matter. Even if they admit that the unhappy condition within us…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 96 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. We may now consider the question whether fire is the sole element existing in that celestial realm and whether there is any outgoing thence with the consequent need of renewal. Timaeus pronounced the material frame of the All…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 101

“Section 2 2. And what of lower things? [Why have they not this motion?] [Their case is very different]: the single thing here is not an all but a part and limited to a given segment of space; that other realm is all, is space, so to speak,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 112 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. This brings us to the Spindle-destiny, spun according to the ancients by the Fates. To Plato the Spindle represents the co-operation of the moving and the stable elements of the kosmic circuit: the Fates with Necessity, Mothe…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 112 (part 2)

“For the Universe is in truth a thing of blend, and if we separate from it that separable Soul, the residue is little. The All is a God when the divine Soul is counted in with it; "the rest," we read, "is a mighty spirit and its ways are su…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 117

“Section 14 14. What of poverty and riches, glory and power? In the case of inherited fortune, the stars merely announce a rich man, exactly as they announce the high social standing of the child born to a distinguished house. Wealth may be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 126

“Section 4 4. The present existence of the Ideal-Forms has been demonstrated elsewhere: we take up our argument from that point. If, then, there is more than one of such forming Ideas, there must of necessity be some character common to all…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 147

“Section 2 2. But we must enquire into Quality in itself: to know its nature is certainly the way to settle our general question. The first point is to assure ourselves whether or not one and the same thing may be held to be sometimes a mere…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 158

“Section 2 2. Therefore we must affirm no more than these three Primals: we are not to introduce superfluous distinctions which their nature rejects. We are to proclaim one Intellectual-Principle unchangeably the same, in no way subject to d…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 161

“Section 5 5. Still more unreasonably: There are men, bound to human bodies and subject to desire, grief, anger, who think so generously of their own faculty that they declare themselves in contact with the Intelligible World, but deny that…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 167

“Section 11 11. Now, in the first place, if the Soul has not actually come down but has illuminated the darkness, how can it truly be said to have declined? The outflow from it of something in the nature of light does not justify the asserti…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 171

“Section 15 15. There is, however, one matter which we must on no account overlook- the effect of these teachings upon the hearers led by them into despising the world and all that is in it. There are two theories as to the attainment of the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 172 (part 1)

“Section 16 16. On the other hand, to despise this Sphere, and the Gods within it or anything else that is lovely, is not the way to goodness. Every evil-doer began by despising the Gods; and one not previously corrupt, taking to this cont…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 173 (part 1)

“Section 17 17. Perhaps the hate of this school for the corporeal is due to their reading of Plato who inveighs against body as a grave hindrance to Soul and pronounces the corporeal to be characteristically the inferior. Then let them for…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 173 (part 2)

“Nothing base within can be beautiful without- at least not with an authentic beauty, for there are examples of a good exterior not sprung from a beauty dominant within; people passing as handsome but essentially base have that, a spurious a…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 174

“Section 18 18. But perhaps this school will maintain that, while their teaching leads to a hate and utter abandonment of the body, ours binds the Soul down in it. In other words: two people inhabit the one stately house; one of them declaim…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 182

“Section 6 6. But in fact everything follows its own Kind; the birth is a horse because it comes from the Horse Kind, a man by springing from the Human Kind; offspring answers to species. Allow the kosmic circuit its part, a very powerful in…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 185

“Section 9 9. We admit, then, a Necessity in all that is brought about by this compromise between evil and accidental circumstance: what room was there for anything else than the thing that is? Given all the causes, all must happen beyond ay…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 186

“Section 10 10. To sum the results of our argument: All things and events are foreshown and brought into being by causes; but the causation is of two Kinds; there are results originating from the Soul and results due to other causes, those o…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 191

“Section 4 4. That water extinguishes fire and fire consumes other things should not astonish us. The thing destroyed derived its being from outside itself: this is no case of a self-originating substance being annihilated by an external; it…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 209

“Section 3 3. For, even though the I is sovereign in choosing, yet by the fact of the choice the thing done takes its place in the ordered total. Your personality does not come from outside into the universal scheme; you are a part of it, yo…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 215

“Section 1 1. Some Existents [Absolute Unity and Intellectual-Principle] remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed-Idea, come into being; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty- th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 217

“Section 3 3. What, then, is the spirit [guiding the present life and determining the future]? The Spirit of here and now. And the God? The God of here and now. Spirit, God; This in act within us, conducts every life; for, even here and now,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 250 (part 2)

“No: for there is no first Idea except the Ideal Principle of the Universe- and, by this Idea, Matter is [the seat of] all things at once and of the particular thing in its parts- for the Matter of a living being is disparted according to th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 257

“Section 5 5. This Ever-Being is realized when upon examination of an object I am able to say- or rather, to know- that in its very Nature it is incapable of increment or change; anything that fails by that test is no Ever-Existent or, at le…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 259

“Section 7 7. Now comes the question whether, in all this discussion, we are not merely helping to make out a case for some other order of Beings and talking of matters alien to ourselves. But how could that be? What understanding can there…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 260 (part 1)

“Section 8 8. Movement Time cannot be- whether a definite act of moving is meant or a united total made up of all such acts- since movement, in either sense, takes place in Time. And, of course, if there is any movement not in Time, the id…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 264 (part 1)

“Section 12 12. We are brought thus to the conception of a Natural-Principle- Time- a certain expanse [a quantitative phase] of the Life of the Soul, a principle moving forward by smooth and uniform changes following silently upon each othe…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 264 (part 2)

“This brings us to the fact that, in a certain sense, the Movement, the orbit of the universe, may legitimately be said to measure Time- in so far as that is possible at all- since any definite stretch of that circuit occupies a certain quan…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 265 (part 1)

“Section 13 13. The Spheral Circuit, then, performed in Time, indicates it: but when we come to Time itself there is no question of its being "within" something else: it must be primary, a thing "within itself." It is that in which all the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 269

“Section 3 3. But if this Reason-Principle [Nature] is in act- and produces by the process indicated- how can it have any part in Contemplation? To begin with, since in all its production it is stationary and intact, a Reason-Principle self-…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 275 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. Clearly a Being of this nature is not the primal existent; there must exist that which transcends it, that Being [the Absolute], to which all our discussion has been leading. In the first place, Plurality is later than Unity.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 276 (part 1)

“Section 10 10. And what will such a Principle essentially be? The potentiality of the Universe: the potentiality whose non-existence would mean the non-existence of all the Universe and even of the Intellectual-Principle which is the prim…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 276 (part 2)

“It cannot be, itself, The Good, since then it would not need to see or to perform any other Act; for The Good is the centre of all else, and it is by means of The Good that every thing has Act, while the Good is in need of nothing and there…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 278 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. "The Intellectual-Principle" [= the Divine Mind]- we read [in the Timaeus]- "looks upon the Ideas indwelling in that Being which is the Essentially Living [= according to Plotinus, the Intellectual Realm], "and then"- the text…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 283

“Section 1 1. In the Intellectual Kosmos dwells Authentic Essence, with the Intellectual-Principle [Divine Mind] as the noblest of its content, but containing also souls, since every soul in this lower sphere has come thence: that is the wor…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 288

“Section 1 1. The soul: what dubious questions concerning it admit of solution, or where we must abide our doubt- with, at least, the gain of recognizing the problem that confronts us- this is matter well worth attention. On what subject can…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 289 (part 1)

“Section 2 2. To this our first answer is that to place certain things under one identical class- by admitting an identical range of operation- is to make them of one common species, and puts an end to all mention of part; the reasonable co…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 294

“Section 7 7. So far, so good: but what of the passage in the Philebus taken to imply that the other souls are parts of the All-Soul? The statement there made does not bear the meaning read into it; it expresses only, what the author was the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 300

“Section 13 13. The Ineluctable, the Kosmic Law is, thus, rooted in a natural principle under which each several entity is overruled to go, duly and in order, towards that place and Kind to which it characteristically tends, that is towards…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 307 (part 1)

“Section 20 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…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 327

“Section 7 7. Well but can they not tell themselves that yesterday, or last year, they moved round the earth, that they lived yesterday or at any given moment in their lives? Their living is eternal, and eternity is an unchanging unity. To i…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 332

“Section 12 12. It may be urged that all the multiplicity and development are the work of Nature, but that, since there is wisdom within the All, there must be also, by the side of such natural operation, acts of reasoning and of memory. But…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 355 (part 2)

“Why else do certain groupments, in contradistinction to others, terrify at sight though there has been no previous experience of evil from them? If some men are alarmed by a particular groupment and others by quite a different one, the rea…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 362

“Section 42 42. It follows that, for the purposes which have induced this discussion, the stars have no need of memory or of any sense of petitions addressed to them; they give no such voluntary attention to prayers as some have thought: it…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 367

“Section 1 1. We undertook to discuss the question whether sight is possible in the absence of any intervening medium, such as air or some other form of what is known as transparent body: this is the time and place. It has been explained tha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 376

“Section 1 1. Perceptions are no imprints, we have said, are not to be thought of as seal-impressions on soul or mind: accepting this statement, there is one theory of memory which must be definitely rejected. Memory is not to be explained a…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 386

“Section 7 7. We come to the same result by examining the sense of pain. We say there is pain in the finger: the trouble is doubtless in the finger, but our opponents must admit that the sensation of the pain is in the centre of consciousnes…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 398

“Section 14 14. (19) As for the souls of the other living beings, fallen to the degree of entering brute bodies, these too must be immortal. And if there is in the animal world any other phase of soul, its only possible origin, since it is t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 401

“Section 1 1. Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enact…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 403

“Section 3 3. The Human Soul, next; Everywhere we hear of it as in bitter and miserable durance in body, a victim to troubles and desires and fears and all forms of evil, the body its prison or its tomb, the kosmos its cave or cavern. Now th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 406

“Section 6 6. Something besides a unity there must be or all would be indiscernibly buried, shapeless within that unbroken whole: none of the real beings [of the Intellectual Kosmos] would exist if that unity remained at halt within itself:…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 408

“Section 8 8. And- if it is desirable to venture the more definite statement of a personal conviction clashing with the general view- even our human soul has not sunk entire; something of it is continuously in the Intellectual Realm, though…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 411

“Section 2 2. Now to begin with, the unity of soul, mine and another's, is not enough to make the two totals of soul and body identical. An identical thing in different recipients will have different experiences; the identity Man, in me as I…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 412

“Section 3 3. Yet, looking at another set of facts, reflection tells us that we are in sympathetic relation to each other, suffering, overcome, at the sight of pain, naturally drawn to forming attachments; and all this can be due only to som…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 413

“Section 4 4. These reflections should show that there is nothing strange in that reduction of all souls to one. But it is still necessary to enquire into the mode and conditions of the unity. Is it the unity of origin in a unity? And if so,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 419

“Section 3 3. The Soul once seen to be thus precious, thus divine, you may hold the faith that by its possession you are already nearing God: in the strength of this power make upwards towards Him: at no great distance you must attain: there…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 420

“Section 4 4. But there is yet another way to this knowledge: Admiring the world of sense as we look out upon its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, thinking of the gods within it, seen and hidden, and the celestial spir…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 423 (part 2)

“Now, even in the Divine the engendered could not be the very highest; it must be a lesser, an image; it will be undetermined, as the Divine is, but will receive determination, and, so to speak, its shaping idea, from the progenitor. Yet an…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 424

“Section 8 8. This is the explanation of Plato's Triplicity, in the passage where he names as the Primals the Beings gathered about the King of All, and establishes a Secondary containing the Secondaries, and a Third containing the Tertiarie…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 426

“Section 10 10. We have shown the inevitability of certain convictions as to the scheme of things: There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One, whose nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend them…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 427

“Section 11 11. Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good- for reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that- there must exist some permanent Right, the source and foundation of this reaso…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 428

“Section 12 12. Possessed of such powers, how does it happen that we do not lay hold of them, but for the most part, let these high activities go idle- some, even, of us never bringing them in any degree to effect? The answer is that all the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 431

“Section 2 2. To resume: there is from the first principle to ultimate an outgoing in which unfailingly each principle retains its own seat while its offshoot takes another rank, a lower, though on the other hand every being is in identity w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 433

“Section 1 1. Are we to think that a being knowing itself must contain diversity, that self-knowledge can be affirmed only when some one phase of the self perceives other phases, and that therefore an absolutely simplex entity would be equal…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 434

“Section 2 2. We begin with the soul, asking whether it is to be allowed self-knowledge and what the knowing principle in it would be and how operating. The sense-principle in it we may at once decide, takes cognisance only of the external;…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 437 (part 1)

“Section 5 5. Does it all come down, then, to one phase of the self knowing another phase? That would be a case of knower distinguished from known, and would not be self-knowing. What, then, if the total combination were supposed to be of…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 437 (part 2)

“It possesses self-knowing, thus, on every count; the act is itself; and the object seen in that act- self, is itself.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 439

“Section 7 7. The contemplating of God, we might answer. But to admit its knowing God is to be compelled to admit its self-knowing. It will know what it holds from God, what God has given forth or may; with this knowledge, it knows itself at…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 444 (part 2)

“The entire intellectual order may be figured as a kind of light with the One in repose at its summit as its King: but this manifestation is not cast out from it: we may think, rather, of the One as a light before the light, an eternal irrad…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 445

“Section 13 13. Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but the all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind, possesses alone of all true being, and is not a thing among things; we ca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 447 (part 1)

“Section 15 15. Conferring- but how? As itself possessing them or not? How can it convey what it does not possess, and yet if it does possess how is it simplex? And if, again, it does not, how is it the source of the manifold? A single,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 447 (part 2)

“We may take it as proved that the emanation of the Transcendent must be a Not-One something other than pure unity, but that it is a multiplicity, and especially that it is such a multiplicity as is exhibited in the sequent universe, this is…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 448

“Section 16 16. We have, of course, already seen that a secondary must follow upon the First, and that this is a power immeasurably fruitful; and we indicated that this truth is confirmed by the entire order of things since there is nothing,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 449

“Section 17 17. But what can it be which is loftier than that existence- a life compact of wisdom, untouched by struggle and error, or than this Intellect which holds the Universe with all there is of life and intellect? If we answer "The Ma…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 451

“Section 1 1. Anything existing after The First must necessarily arise from that First, whether immediately or as tracing back to it through intervenients; there must be an order of secondaries and tertiaries, in which any second is to be re…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 452 (part 1)

“Section 2 2. If the Intellectual-Principle were the engendering Source, then the engendered secondary, while less perfect than the Intellectual-Principle, would be close to it and similar to it: but since the engendering Source is above th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 452 (part 2)

“And again, if that secondary is all things, and if above its multiplicity there is a unity not ranking among those things, once more this unity transcends Real Being and therefore transcends the Intellectual-Principle as well. There is thu…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 454 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. The Intellectual-Principle, the veritably and essentially intellective, can this be conceived as ever falling into error, ever failing to think reality? Assuredly no: it would no longer be intelligent and therefore no longer…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 454 (part 2)

“How does the Intellectual-Principle come to meet with them as it travels round; what keeps each true to its character; what gives them enduring identity; what conceivable shape or character can they have? They are being presented to us as…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 455

“Section 2 2. Thus we may not look for the Intellectual objects [the Ideas] outside of the Intellectual-Principle, treating them as impressions of reality upon it: we cannot strip it of truth and so make its objects unknowable and non-existe…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 456

“Section 3 3. Thus we have here one identical Principle, the Intellect, which is the universe of authentic beings, the Truth: as such it is a great god or, better, not a god among gods but the Godhead entire. It is a god, a secondary god man…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 457

“Section 4 4. We have said that all must be brought back to a unity: this must be an authentic unity, not belonging to the order in which multiplicity is unified by participation in what is truly a One; we need a unity independent of partici…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 458

“Section 5 5. We return to our statement that The First remains intact even when other entities spring from it. In the case of numbers, the unit remains intact while something else produces, and thus number arises in dependence on the unit:…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 463

“Section 10 10. Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of these other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its trace: you must form the idea of that which is to be grasped cleanly standing to itself not in any com…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 464

“Section 11 11. It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One, it has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no limit either in regard t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 465

“Section 12 12. Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object; eyes for one kind, ears for another: similarly some things, we must believe, are to be known by the Intellectual-Principle in us. We must not confuse intellection with hearing o…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 466

“Section 13 13. The Supreme, as the Absolute Good and not merely a good being or thing, can contain nothing, since there is nothing that could be its good. Anything it could contain must be either good to it or not good; but in the supremely…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 468

“Section 1 1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality. Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards the pure unity of which it is not so…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 469

“Section 2 2. Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in which intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates that what transcends the primarily intellective has no intellection; for, to have intellection, it must…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 470

“Section 3 3. We may be told that nothing prevents an identity being thus multiple. But there must be a unity underlying the aggregate: a manifold is impossible without a unity for its source or ground, or at least, failing some unity, relat…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 471

“Section 4 4. Another consideration is that if The Good [and First] is simplex and without need, it can neither need the intellective act nor possess what it does not need: it will therefore not have intellection. (Interpolation or corruptio…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 473

“Section 6 6. If this reasoning is valid, The Good has no scope whatever for intellection which demands something attractive from outside. The Good, then, is without Act. What Act indeed, could be vested in Activity's self? No activity has y…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 475

“Section 1 1. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal archetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other human being go back to the Intellectual, every [living] thing having origin and principle There. I…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 476

“Section 2 2. But individuals are brought into being by the union of the Reason-Principles of the parents, male and female: this seems to do away with a definite Reason-Principle for each of the offspring: one of the parents- the male let us…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 477

“Section 3 3. In the case of twin birth among human beings how can we make out the Reason-Principles to be different; and still more when we turn to the animals and especially those with litters? Where the young are precisely alike, there is…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 479

“Section 1 1. It is a principle with us that one who has attained to the vision of the Intellectual Beauty and grasped the beauty of the Authentic Intellect will be able also to come to understand the Father and Transcendent of that Divine B…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 480

“Section 2 2. But let us leave the arts and consider those works produced by Nature and admitted to be naturally beautiful which the creations of art are charged with imitating, all reasoning life and unreasoning things alike, but especially…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 487

“Section 9 9. Let us, then, make a mental picture of our universe: each member shall remain what it is, distinctly apart; yet all is to form, as far as possible, a complete unity so that whatever comes into view shall show as if it were the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 489

“Section 11 11. Similarly any one, unable to see himself, but possessed by that God, has but to bring that divine- within before his consciousness and at once he sees an image of himself, himself lifted to a better beauty: now let him ignore…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 490

“Section 12 12. We have told how this vision is to be procured, whether by the mode of separation or in identity: now, seen in either way, what does it give to report? The vision has been of God in travail of a beautiful offspring, God engen…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 491

“Section 13 13. The God fettered [as in the Kronos Myth] to an unchanging identity leaves the ordering of this universe to his son (to Zeus), for it could not be in his character to neglect his rule within the divine sphere, and, as though s…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 495

“Section 3 3. We will have to examine this Nature, the Intellectual, which our reasoning identifies as the authentically existent and the veritable essential: but first we must take another path and make certain that such a principle does ne…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 497 (part 2)

“This universe, characteristically participant in images, shows how the image differs from the authentic beings: against the variability of the one order, there stands the unchanging quality of the other, self-situate, not needing space beca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 500

“Section 8 8. If, then, the Intellection is an act upon the inner content [of a perfect unity], that content is at once the Idea [as object: eidos] and the Idea itself [as concept: idea]. What, then, is that content? An Intellectual-Principl…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 502

“Section 10 10. All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained in the arts; lame…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 511

“Section 3 3. But perhaps we should rather speak of some single category, embracing Intellectual Substance, Matter, Form, and the Composite of Matter and Form. One might refer to the family of the Heraclids as a unity in the sense, not of a…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 512 (part 2)

“True, greatness and smallness are not claimed to be quantities, but relations: but it is by their apparent possession of quantity that they are thought of as relations. All this, however, needs more careful examination. In sum, we hold th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 515

“Section 8 8. But we are digressing: we must resume our enquiry into the cause of dissimilarity among relations. Yet we must first be informed what reality, common to all cases, is possessed by this Existence derived from mutual conditions.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 517 (part 1)

“Section 10 10. As regards Quality, the source of what we call a "quale," we must in the first place consider what nature it possesses in accordance with which it produces the "qualia," and whether, remaining one and the same in virtue of t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 539

“Section 1 1. We have examined the proposed "ten genera": we have discussed also the theory which gathers the total of things into one genus and to this subordinates what may be thought of as its four species. The next step is, naturally, to…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 540

“Section 2 2. In asserting that Being is not a unity, we do not mean to imply a definite number of existences; the number may well be infinite: we mean simply that it is many as well as one, that it is, so to speak, a diversified unity, a pl…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 546 (part 2)

“In so doing, we shall not withhold Identity and Difference from the subsequents of the Intellectual order; the thing of Sense has, it is clear, a particular identity and a particular difference, but Identity and Difference have the generic…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 548

“Section 10 10. In what sense is the particular manifestation of Being a unity? Clearly, in so far as it is one thing, it forfeits its unity; with "one" and "thing" we have already plurality. No species can be a unity in more than an equivoc…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 549 (part 2)

“In the first place, the point is common to lines and yet is not their genus, and this unity we are considering may also be common to numbers and not be their genus- though, we need hardly say, the unity of Unity-Absolute is not that of the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 554

“Section 16 16. As for Relation, manifestly an offshoot, how can it be included among primaries? Relation is of thing ranged against thing; it is not self-pivoted, but looks outward. Place and Date are still more remote from Being. Place den…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 555

“Section 17 17. Why are not beauty, goodness and the virtues, together with knowledge and intelligence, included among the primary genera? If by goodness we mean The First- what we call the Principle of Goodness, the Principle of which we ca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 556

“Section 18 18. To pass to the consideration of beauty: If by beauty we mean the primary Beauty, the same or similar arguments will apply here as to goodness: and if the beauty in the Ideal-Form is, as it were, an effulgence [from that prima…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 558

“Section 20 20. We may thus distinguish two phases of Intellect, in one of which it may be taken as having no contact whatever with particulars and no Act upon anything; thus it is kept apart from being a particular intellect. In the same wa…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 559 (part 1)

“Section 21 21. How then does the universal Intellect produce the particulars while, in virtue of its Reason-Principle, remaining a unity? In other words, how do the various grades of Being, as we call them, arise from the four primaries?…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 559 (part 2)

“Clearly nothing may legitimately be excluded [from Being], for the whole must be complete in the higher sphere which, otherwise, would not be the whole. Life, too, burst upon Being, or rather was inseparably bound up with it; and thus it w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 563

“Section 2 2. Our first observations must be directed to what passes in the Sensible realm for Substance. It is, we shall agree, only by analogy that the nature manifested in bodies is designated as Substance, and by no means because such te…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 564

“Section 3 3. How then do we go to work? Let us begin by distinguishing Matter, Form, the Mixture of both, and the Attributes of the Mixture. The Attributes may be subdivided into those which are mere predicates, and those serving also as ac…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 568

“Section 7 7. But Matter, it may be contended, is the source of existence to the Sensible things implanted in it. From what source, then, we retort, does Matter itself derive existence and being? That Matter is not a Primary we have establis…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 582 (part 1)

“Section 21 21. The claim of Motion to be established as a genus will depend upon three conditions: first, that it cannot rightly be referred to any other genus; second, that nothing higher than itself can be predicated of it in respect of…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 602

“Section 12 12. Think of a sound passing through the air and carrying a word; an ear within range catches and comprehends; and the sound and word will strike upon any other ear you may imagine within the intervening void, upon any that atten…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 603

“Section 13 13. But how account, at this, for its extension over all the heavens and all living beings? There is no such extension. Sense-perception, by insistence upon which we doubt, tells of Here and There; but reason certifies that the H…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 604

“Section 14 14. But, admitting this one soul at every point, how is there a particular soul of the individual and how the good soul and the bad? The one soul reaches to the individual but nonetheless contains all souls and all intelligences;…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 605

“Section 15 15. But how did this intruder find entrance? It had a certain aptitude and it grasped at that to which it was apt. In its nature it was capable of soul: but what is unfitted to receive soul entire- present entire but not for it-…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 608

“Section 1 1. The integral omnipresence of a unity numerically identical is in fact universally received; for all men instinctively affirm the god in each of us to be one, the same in all. It would be taken as certain if no one asked How or…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 609

“Section 2 2. Now the reasoning faculty which undertakes this problem is not a unity but a thing of parts; it brings the bodily nature into the enquiry, borrowing its principles from the corporeal: thus it thinks of the Essential Existence a…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 612

“Section 5 5. Often for the purpose of exposition- as a help towards stating the nature of the produced multiplicity- we use the example of many lines radiating from one centre; but, while we provide for individualization, we must carefully…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 613

“Section 6 6. The Intellectual Beings, thus, are multiple and one; in virtue of their infinite nature their unity is a multiplicity, many in one and one over many, a unit-plurality. They act as entire upon entire; even upon the partial thing…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 616

“Section 9 9. The elements in their totality, as they stand produced, may be thought of as one spheric figure; this cannot be the piecemeal product of many makers each working from some one point on some one portion. There must be one cause;…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 618

“Section 11 11. But how can the unextended reach over the defined extension of the corporeal? How can it, so, maintain itself as a unity, an identity? This is a problem often raised and reason calls vehemently for a solution of the difficult…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 619

“Section 12 12. To return: How is that Power present to the universe? As a One Life. Consider the life in any living thing; it does not reach only to some fixed point, unable to permeate the entire being; it is omnipresent. If on this again…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 621

“Section 1 1. It is suggested that multiplicity is a falling away from The Unity, infinity being the complete departure, an innumerable multiplicity, and that this is why unlimit is an evil and we evil at the stage of multiplicity. A thing,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 622

“Section 2 2. What, then, of the "Number of the Infinite"? To begin with, how is Number consistent with infinity? Objects of sense are not unlimited and therefore the Number applying to them cannot be so. Nor is an enumerator able to number…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 623

“Section 3 3. And there is the question How can the infinite have existence and remain unlimited: whatever is in actual existence is by that very fact determined numerically. But, first, if multiplicity holds a true place among Beings, how c…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 624

“Section 4 4. We have to enquire into the existence of the Numbers in the Intellectual. Are they Ideas added to the other Ideas? Or are they no more than necessary concomitants to the Ideas? In the latter case, Being, as the first [in the In…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 626

“Section 6 6. Granted, then, that there exist, apart from things, a unity absolute and a decad absolute in other words, that the Intellectual beings, together with their characteristic essence have also their order, Henads, Dyads, Triads, wh…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 627

“Section 7 7. It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within one nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; there cannot be as in the realm of sense thing apart from thing, here a sun and elsewhere something else; all mu…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 628

“Section 8 8. As then there is a Life-Form primal- which therefore is the Life-Form Absolute- and there is Intellectual-Principle or Being, Authentic Being, these, we affirm, contain all living things and all Number, and Absolute Justice and…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 629

“Section 9 9. It remains then to consider whether Being by its distinction produced Number or Number produced that distinction. It is certain that either Number was the cause of Being, movement, rest, identity and difference, or these the ca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 631

“Section 11 11. It may be suggested that the decad is nothing more than so many henads; admitting the one henad why should we reject the ten? As the one is a real existence why not the rest? We are certainly not compelled to attach that one…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 633 (part 1)

“Section 13 13. It cannot reasonably be thought that the notion of unity is derived from the object since this is physical- man, animal, even stone, a presentation of that order is something very different from unity [which must be a thing…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 633 (part 2)

“If Unity is necessary to the substantial existence of all that really is- and nothing exists which is not one- Unity must precede Reality and be its author. It is therefore, an existent Unity, not an existent that develops Unity; considere…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 634

“Section 14 14. To the argument touching relation we have an answer surely legitimate: The Unity is not of a nature to lose its own manner of being only because something else stands in a state which it does not itself share; to stray from i…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 635

“Section 15 15. We must repeat: The Collective Being, the Authentic, There, is at once Being and Intellectual-Principle and the Complete Living Form; thus it includes the total of living things; the Unity There is reproduced by the unity of…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 636 (part 1)

“Section 16 16. But here we may be questioned about these numbers which we describe as the primal and authentic: "Where do you place these numbers, in what genus among Beings? To everyone they seem to come under Quantity and you have certa…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 637

“Section 17 17. But what of the Infinite Number we hear of; does not all this reasoning set it under limit? And rightly so if the thing is to be a number; limitlessness and number are in contradiction. How, then, do we come to use the term?…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 638

“Section 18 18. It appears then that Number in that realm is definite; it is we that can conceive the "More than is present"; the infinity lies in our counting: in the Real is no conceiving more than has been conceived; all stands entire; no…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 640 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. God, or some one of the gods, in sending the souls to their birth, placed eyes in the face to catch the light and allotted to each sense the appropriate organ, providing thus for the safety which comes by seeing and hearing in…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 640 (part 2)

“If then the future is present, it must be present as having been foreconceived for later coming to be; at that divine stage therefore it lacks nothing and therefore can never lack; all existed, eternally and in such a way that at the later…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 641 (part 1)

“Section 2 2. Thus we have even here the means of knowing the nature of the Intellectual-Principle, though, seeing it more closely than anything else, we still see it at less than its worth. We know that it exists but its cause we do not s…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 641 (part 2)

“The why is inherent, therefore, in the entity, that is to say in every thought and activity of the Intellectual-Principle. Take for example the Idea of Man; Man entire is found to contribute to it; he is in that Idea in all his fulness inc…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 642

“Section 3 3. What then is there to prevent man having been the object of planning There? No: all stands in that likeness, nothing to be added or taken away; this planning and reasoning is based only on an assumption; things are taken to be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 643

“Section 4 4. To meet the difficulty we must make a close examination of the nature of Man in the Intellectual; perhaps, though, it is better to begin with the man of this plane lest we be reasoning to Man There from a misconception of Man h…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 646

“Section 7 7. But if it is by becoming evil and inferior that the soul produces the animal nature, the making of ox or horse was not at the outset in its character; the reason-principle of the animal, and the animal itself, must lie outside…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 657 (part 2)

“We cannot be content with the conviction of their goodness on the ground of their origin in that realm: we do not deny that things deriving Thence are good, but our subject demands that we discover the mode by which they come to possess tha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 660

“Section 21 21. Now what in all these objects of desire is the fundamental making them good? We must be bold: Intellectual-Principle and that life are of the order of good and hold their desirability, even they, in virtue of belonging to tha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 662

“Section 23 23. That which soul must quest, that which sheds its light upon Intellectual-Principle, leaving its mark wherever it falls, surely we need not wonder that it be of power to draw to itself, calling back from every wandering to res…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 663

“Section 24 24. But ourselves- how does it touch us? We may recall what we have said of the nature of the light shining from it into Intellectual-Principle and so by participation into the soul. But for the moment let us leave that aside and…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 664

“Section 25 25. It is in view, probably, of this difficulty that Plato, in the Philebus, makes pleasure an element in the Term; the good is not defined as a simplex or set in Intellectual-Principle alone; while he rightly refrains from ident…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 665

“Section 26 26. Any conscious being, if the good come to him, will know the good and affirm his possession of it. But what if one be deceived? In that case there must be some resemblance to account for the error: the good will be the origina…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 666

“Section 27 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…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 669

“Section 30 30. Whether pleasure must enter into the good, so that life in the contemplation of the divine things and especially of their source remains still imperfect, is a question not to be ignored in any enquiry into the nature of the g…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 670

“Section 31 31. But since Thence come the beauty and light in all, it is Thence that Intellectual-Principle took the brilliance of the Intellectual Energy which flashed Nature into being; Thence soul took power towards life, in virtue of tha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 672

“Section 33 33. When therefore we name beauty, all such shape must be dismissed; nothing visible is to be conceived, or at once we descend from beauty to what but bears the name in virtue of some faint participation. This formless Form is be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 673

“Section 34 34. No longer can we wonder that the principle evoking such longing should be utterly free from shape. The very soul, once it has conceived the straining love towards this, lays aside all the shape it has taken, even to the Intel…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 674

“Section 35 35. Such in this union is the soul's temper that even the act of Intellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses; Intellection is movement and she has no wish to move; she has nothing to say of this very Intellectual-Princ…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 675

“Section 36 36. We need not carry this matter further; we turn to a question already touched but demanding still some brief consideration. Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the all-important: this- we read- is the grand learning,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 678

“Section 39 39. Since the Supreme has no interval, no self-differentiation what can have this intuitional approach to it but itself? Therefore it quite naturally assumes difference at the point where Intellectual-Principle and Being are diff…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 679 (part 1)

“Section 40 40. That there can be no intellection in the First will be patent to those that have had such contact; but some further confirmation is desirable, if indeed words can carry the matter; we need overwhelming persuasion. It must b…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 679 (part 2)

“But this would make the power something outside itself; there would be, I mean, the power it grasped and the power by which it grasped: if there is but the one power, what is there to grasp at?…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 680

“Section 41 41. Intellection seems to have been given as an aid to the diviner but weaker beings, an eye to the blind. But the eye itself need not see Being since it is itself the light; what must take the light through the eye needs the lig…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 681

“Section 42 42. Faced by the difficulty of placing these powers, you must in reason allocate to the secondaries what you count august: secondaries must not be foisted upon the First, or tertiaries upon the secondaries. Secondaries are to be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 683

“Section 1 1. Can there be question as to whether the gods have voluntary action? Or are we to take it that, while we may well enquire in the case of men with their combination of powerlessness and hesitating power, the gods must be declared…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 685

“Section 3 3. All this calls for examination; the enquiry must bring us close to the solution as regards the gods. We have traced self-disposal to will, will to reasoning and, next step, to right reasoning; perhaps to right reasoning we must…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 686

“Section 4 4. It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary, since desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still to be drawn, even though towards the good. Intellectual-Principle itself comes under the doubt; havin…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 687

“Section 5 5. Are we, however, to make freedom and self-disposal exclusive to Intellectual-Principle as engaged in its characteristic Act, Intellectual-Principle unassociated, or do they belong also to soul acting under that guidance and per…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 688

“Section 6 6. How then did we come to place freedom in the will when we made out free action to be that produced- or as we also indicated, suppressed- at the dictate of will? If what we have been saying is true and our former statement is co…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 689

“Section 7 7. Soul becomes free when it moves, through Intellectual-Principle, towards The Good; what it does in that spirit is its free act; Intellectual-Principle is free in its own right. That principle of Good is the sole object of desir…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 690

“Section 8 8. But it is not, in our view, as an attribute that this freedom is present in the First. In the light of free acts, from which we eliminate the contraries, we recognise There self-determination, self-directed and, failing more su…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 691

“Section 9 9. If we cannot but speak of Happening we must not halt at the word but look to the intention. And what is that? That the Supreme by possession of a certain nature and power is the Principle. Obviously if its nature were other it…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 693

“Section 11 11. But this Unoriginating, what is it? We can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no further. What can we look for when we have reached the furthest? Every enquiry aims at a first and, that attained, rests. Besides, we mu…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 698

“Section 16 16. We maintain, and it is evident truth, that the Supreme is everywhere and yet nowhere; keeping this constantly in mind let us see how it bears on our present enquiry. If God is nowhere, then not anywhere has He "happened to be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 699

“Section 17 17. Or consider it another way: We hold the universe, with its content entire, to be as all would be if the design of the maker had so willed it, elaborating it with purpose and prevision by reasonings amounting to a Providence.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 700 (part 1)

“Section 18 18. Seeking Him, seek nothing of Him outside; within is to be sought what follows upon Him; Himself do not attempt. He is, Himself, that outer, He the encompassment and measure of all things; or rather He is within, at the inne…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 701

“Section 19 19. Stirred to the Supreme by what has been told, a man must strive to possess it directly; then he too will see, though still unable to tell it as he would wish. One seeing That as it really is will lay aside all reasoning upon…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 702

“Section 20 20. The difficulty will be raised that God would seem to have existed before thus coming into existence; if He makes Himself, then in regard to the self which He makes He is not yet in being and as maker He exists before this Him…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 703

“Section 21 21. Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did? If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the inapt; it is that steadfast consta…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 705

“Section 1 1. It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings. This is equally true of things whose existence is primal and of all that are in any degree to be numbered among beings. What could exist at all except as one thing? Deprived of u…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 706

“Section 2 2. It may be suggested that, while in the unities of the partial order the essence and the unity are distinct, yet in collective existence, in Real Being, they are identical, so that when we have grasped Being we hold unity; Real…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 707 (part 1)

“Section 3 3. What then must The Unity be, what nature is left for it? No wonder that to state it is not easy; even Being and Form are not easy, though we have a way, an approach through the Ideas. The soul or mind reaching towards the fo…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 708

“Section 4 4. The main part of the difficulty is that awareness of this Principle comes neither by knowing nor by the Intellection that discovers the Intellectual Beings but by a presence overpassing all knowledge. In knowing, soul or mind a…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 710 (part 1)

“Section 6 6. In what sense, then, do we assert this Unity, and how is it to be adjusted to our mental processes? Its oneness must not be entitled to that of monad and point: for these the mind abstracts extension and numerical quantity an…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 710 (part 2)

“Unity, self-present, it has no need of self-intellection: indeed this "self-presence" were better left out, the more surely to preserve the unity; we must eliminate all knowing and all association, all intellection whether internal or exter…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 711

“Section 7 7. If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know, we must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence to see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this Principle does not lie away somewh…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 712

“Section 8 8. Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its movement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural course may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some external but on its own centre, t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 713 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. In this choiring, the soul looks upon the wellspring of Life, wellspring also of Intellect, beginning of Being, fount of Good, root of Soul. It is not that these are poured out from the Supreme lessening it as if it were a th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 713 (part 2)

“Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes another life as it approaches God; thus restored it feels that the dispenser of true life is There to see, that now we have nothing to look for but, far otherwise, that we must put…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 714

“Section 10 10. But how comes the soul not to keep that ground? Because it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be the time of vision unbroken, the self hindered no longer by any hindrance of body. Not that those hindrances beset that…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 715

“Section 11 11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 716

“Section 11 11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained t…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 10, Section 1a

“CHAPTER X Concerning ” Omnipotent ,” ” Ancient of Days “; and also concerning ” Eternity “ and ” Time .” 1. Now ‘tis time that our Discourse should celebrate God (Whose Names are many) as “Omnipotent” and “Ancient of Days.” The former titl…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1b

“For even as things which are intellectually discerned 52 52 i. e. The Transcendent Truths which are beyond ordinary knowledge. νοητά . The word νοῦς = Mind in the sense not merely of abstract intellect but of the spiritual personality.…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1g

“But if It is greater than all Reason and all knowledge, and hath Its firm abode altogether beyond Mind and Being, and circumscribes, compacts, embraces and anticipates all things 87 87 παντῶν . . . προληπτική—i.e. contains them eternall…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1h

“that which makes an individual thing to be one thing); (2) Mental or Spiritual intercourse; (3) Physical intercourse; (4) Sense perception. Here it = either (1) or (2), probably (1). limit, infinity, everything that exists. And yet since…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1i

“1 . as “God of Gods” and “Lord of Lords”, 108 108 Ps. cxxxvi. 2, 3 . and “Holy of Holies,” 109 109 Isa. vi. 3 . as “Eternal,” 110 110 Deut. xxxiii. 27 . as “Existent” 111 111 Ex. iii. 14 . and as “Creator of Ages,” 112 112 Gen.…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1j

“143 143 God is above Time. For the Nameless Goodness is not only the cause of cohesion or life or perfection in such wise as to derive Its Name from this or that providential activity alone; nay, rather does It contain all things beforehan…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 11, Section 1a

“CHAPTER XI Concerning ” Peace “ and what is meant by ” Very Being “ Itself , ” Very Life ,” ” Very Power ,” and similar phrases . 1. Now let us praise with reverent hymns of peace the Divine Peace which is the Source of all mutual attract…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 11, Section 1b

“Plotinus says the Godhead is indivisibly divided. doth not leave Its own Unity, but, even in the act of going forth to all things, remains entirely within Itself through the excess of that all-transcendent Unity: concerning these things ‘t…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 1)

“SECT. II. LET us now proceed to his theology; exchanging the obscurity of conjecture for the light of clear evidence; and the intricate labyrinths of fable for the delightful though solitary paths of truth. p. 13 And here I must acquain…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 3)

“Because it is also necessary that the soul, essentially rational, should receive intellect by participation, and that intellectual energy should be of p. 22 two kinds; one primarily subsisting in the divine intellect; but the other subsist…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 4)

“Hence according to his theology there are two worlds, the intelligible and the sensible. Hence too his three demiurgic principles: Jovial, Dionysiacal, and Adonical, Δΐι#, ( ) Διονυσιακὴ, Αδωναϊκὴ, from whence many orders and differences o…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 6)

“34 all things, and yet as separate and apart from all; as the source of all multitude, yet himself perfect unity; and as immensly prolific, yet divinely solitary and ineffably good. Thus, according to Porphyry m , explaining the properties…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 7)

“And although the same employment is common both to the ruler, and those who are ruled; yet the latter, if destitute of a leader, could no longer conspire together in one occupation; as the concord of the fingers and ` dancers, and the exped…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 8)

“43 these unnatural habits." As, therefore, it is not wonderful that the greatest part of those who inhabit a pestiferous region, should languish and decline, but that a very few should preserve their natural strength; so we ought not to won…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 10)

“For in this solemnity grass is carried about, enwrapping the kernels of olives, attended with figs, all kinds of pulse, oaken boughs or acorns, the fruit of the strawberry, wheat, and barley, a mass of dried figs, cakes composed from the me…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 11)

“As the husbandman, therefore, performs sacred rites, by presenting handfuls of pulse and fruits, so ought we to sacrifice our purest thoughts, and other goods of the soul, thanking the divinities for the sublime contemplations they afford u…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Introductiong

“In reality, however, pleasure (especially of a physical nature) is the true end of existence and exceeds in every way mental and spiritual enjoyments. Pleasure, furthermore, is limited wholly to the moment; now is the only time. The past…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Ancient Mysteries and Secret Societies Which Have Influenced Modern Masonic Symbolismm

“Of these shoots one is manifested from above, which is the Great Power, the Universal Mind ordering all things, male, and the other, [is manifested] from below, the Great Thought, female, producing all things. Hence pairing with each other…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Life and Philosophy of Pythagorasd

“Secondly, the degree of 'Theoreticus,' which dealt with superficial applications of the exact sciences, and, lastly, the degree of 'Electus,' which entitled the candidate to pass forward into the light of the fullest illumination which he w…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Pythagorean Mathematicsl

“Therefore, they chose the five-pointed star, or pentagram, as the symbol of vitality, health, and interpenetration. It was customary for the philosophers to conceal the element of earth under the symbol of a dragon, and many of the heroes…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Colorh

“The figures on the chart disclose the harmonic relationships existing between the four primary elements according to both Fludd and the Pythagoreans. Earth consists of four parts of its own nature; water of three parts of earth and one par…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogonya

“THE Qabbalists conceive of the Supreme Deity as an Incomprehensible Principle to be discovered only through the process of eliminating, in order, all its cognizable attributes. That which remains--when every knowable thing has been removed…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogonyc

“The dot was called God, as being the supreme individualization of the Universal Essence. Concerning this the Zohar says: "When the concealed of the Concealed wished to reveal Himself He first made a single point: the Infinite was entirely…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Mane

“Philo Judæus considered Adam to represent the human mind, which could understand (and hence give names to) the creatures about it, but could not comprehend (and hence left nameless) the mystery of its own nature. Adam was also likened to t…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 1: Poimandres | Section 1d

“Thou seem'st, He said, O thou, not to have given heed to what thou heardest. Did I not bid thee think? Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Thee thanks. If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they merit d…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 3: The Sacred Sermon | Section 1

“The Sacred Sermon 1. The Glory of all things is God, Godhead and Godly Nature. Source of the things that are is God, who is both Mind and Nature - yea Matter, the Wisdom that reveals all things. Source [too] is Godhead - yea Nature, Energy,…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 5: The Discourse of Hermes to Asclepius | Section 1c

“And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no nome, in that He's Father of [them] all. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee? Whither, again, am I to tur…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 6: The All-Father | Section 1b

“So then, Asclepius, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It - a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by err…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 8: The Eight Sphere | Section 1b

“Now the third life - Man, after the image of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind, after the Father's will, beyond all earthly lives - not only doth have feeling with the second God <i.e., the Cosmos>, but also hath conception of the first; f…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 9: The Decalogue | Section 1c

“This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to move all things. And never time shall be when e'en a whit of things that are shall cease; and when I say "a whit of things that are", I mean a whit of God. For thigs that are, God hath; nor aught […”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 10: The Sermon on the Mount | Section 1a

“The Key <This longer tractate presents itself explicitly as a summary or abridgement of the General Sermons (CH II-IX), and discusses the Hermetic view of knowledge and its role in the lives and afterlives of human beings. The attentive re…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 11: The Hymn | Section 1e

“And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land, and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as…”

◆Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter XI — How Occult Virtues are Infused into the Several Kinds of Things by Ideas Through the Help of the Soul of the World, And Rays of the Stars; and what Things Abound Most with this Virtue | Chapter XI, Section 1

“CHAPTER XI. How Occult Virtues are Infused into the Several Kinds of Things by Ideas Through the Help of the Soul of the World, And Rays of the Stars; and what Things Abound Most with this Virtue . Platonists say that all inferior bodies ar…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | INTRODUCTIONf

“He was then advised to doff the Dominican habit, which he still wore; this he was quite willing to do, only he had no money to buy other clothing, and was forced to have some made of the cloth of his monkish robes, and his new friends prese…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | INTRODUCTIONi

“The life of man is more than an experience or trial; it is an effort, a struggle to reproduce and represent upon earth some of that goodness, beauty, and truth which are diffused over the universe and constitute its harmony. Long, slow, an…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | First Dialogued

“Some are called in vain to put in a ready appearance, and are chiefly those which proceed from the lower instincts, and which obey the reason either not at all, or very little; and forcing himself to prevent their actions and condemn those…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Third Dialoguec

“Here he shows his love not to be like that of the butterfly, of the stag, and of the unicorn, who would flee away if they had knowledge of the fire, of the arrow, and of the snares, and who have no other sense than that of pleasure; but he…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Third Dialogueh

“In which generation finding themselves once more through the changes which permutably succeed, they return again to the superior forms. Cic . So that they mean, that souls are impelled by the necessity of fate, and have no proper counsel…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Fourth Dialogued

“To be infinite, it must be infinitely pursued with that form of pursuit which is not incited physically, but metaphysically, and is not from imperfect to perfect, but goes circulating through the grades of perfection to arrive at that infin…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Fifth Dialoguei

“It seems to me, that it means that his particular intelligence is to the universal intelligence ever the same—that is to say, the one is ever illuminated by the other, over the whole hemisphere; notwithstanding that to the inferior powers,…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 42

“The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 62

“Tao has of all things the most honoured place. No treasures give good men so rich a grace; Bad men it guards, and doth their ill efface. (Its) admirable words can purchase honour; (its) admirable deeds can raise their performer above others…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 70

“My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practise; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practise them. There is an originating and all-comprehending (principle) in my words, and an authoritative law for t…”

◆The Writings of Chuang Tzu (Inner Chapters) | Book 124 (part 10)

“Of the sounds of Man very little is said, but they form the subject of the next paragraph. Nothing is said in answer to the disciple's inquiry about the notes of Heaven. It is intimated, however, that there is no necessity to introduce an…”

◇Tao Te Ching | Chapter 1

“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. (Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a n…”

◇Tao Te Ching | Chapter 4

“The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things! We should blunt our sharp points, and…”

◇Tao Te Ching | Chapter 6

“The valley spirit dies not, aye the same; The female mystery thus do we name. Its gate, from which at first they issued forth, Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth. Long and unbroken does its power remain, Used gently, and wi…”

◇Tao Te Ching | Chapter 14

“We look at it, and we do not see it, and we name it 'the Equable.' We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it 'the Inaudible.' We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we name it 'the Subtle.' With these three qualitie…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 12

“The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 22

“Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom." They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 49

“Jesus said, "Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return."…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 50

“Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to y…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 77

“Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."…”

◆Pistis Sophia | Document FIRSTe

“And having come, coming unto the World I came unto the midst of the Rulers of the Sphere, I was the likeness of Gabriel the angel of the Aeons, and knew me not the Rulers of the Aeons. But they were thinking that I am Gabriel the angel. I…”

◆Pistis Sophia | Document FIRSTf

“And when your time was finished they produced you in [14 ] the World, there not being soul of the Rulers in you; and ye took your part out of the power, this which breathed in unto the Confusion the last Helper, this (power) which is mixed…”

◆Pistis Sophia | Document SECONDb

“I therefore with the power also which came out of me, and the soul which I took from Sabaoth the good, they came close to one another [117 ], they became one effluence of light which enlighteneth greatly greatly; I called unto Gabriel down…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 5)

“The opinion of Tiele is that the religion of Egypt was from the beginning polytheistic, but that it developed in two opposite directions: in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptian…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 6)

“, the litany from the tomb of Seti I., published by Naville, La Litanie du Soleil , Leipzig, 1875, p. 13 ff. 2. E.g. , Hymn to Amen-Ra, translated by Goodwin from papyrus No. 17, now preserved in the Gizeh Museum (see Les Papyrus Égypt…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 14 (part 7)

“Thou hast knit (10) together the mountains, thou has made mankind and the beasts of the field, thou hast created the heavens and the earth. Worshipped be thou whom the goddess Maat embraceth at morn and at eve. Thou dost travel across the…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 43 (part 98)

“It has been urged that the Egyptians never advanced to pure monotheism because they never succeeded in freeing themselves from the belief in the existence of other gods, but when they say that a god has "no second," even though they mention…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 3)

“As a result, it seems that the word "God" should be reserved to express the name of the Creator of the Universe, and that neteru , usually rendered "gods," should be translated by some other word, but what that word should be it is almost i…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 7)

“The sacred Form, beloved, terrible and mighty in his two risings (?), the lord of space, the mighty one of the form of Khepera, who came into existence through Khepera, the lord of the form of Khepera; when he came into being nothing existe…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 8)

“His name is gracious, and the love of him is sweet; and at the dawn all people make supplication unto him through his mighty power and terrible strength, and every god lieth in fear of him. He is the young bull that destroyeth the wicked,…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 11)

“, p. 160. 9. Ibid. , p. 161. 10. Ibid. , p. 163. 11. Ibid. , p. 187. 12 The variant version says, "I developed myself from the primeval matter which I had made." and adds, "My name is Osiris, ###, the substance of primeval mat…”

◆Plato: Phaedo | Section 1}

“For I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together, the mere juxtaposition of them can be the cause of their becoming two: nor can I understand how the divis…”

◆Plato: Phaedo | Section 1ƒ

“And now, he said, I think that I may begin again; and to the question which I am about to ask I will beg you to give not the old safe answer, but another, of which I will offer you an example; and I hope that you will find in what has been…”

◆Plato: Phaedrus | Section 1n

“The beginning of our proof is as follows:- The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to move ceases also to live. Only the sel…”

◆Plato: Republic | Section 1d

“And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hy…”

◆Plato: Republic | Section 1g

“In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question, what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger. True. And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing her…”

◆Plato: Republic | Section 1h

“Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he…”

◆Plato: Timaeus | Section 1l

“This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their ori…”

◆Plato: Timaeus | Section 1x

“Of the infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but a…”

◆The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1a

“p. 43 SPRA DTzNIOVThA (SIPHRA DTZENIOUTHA); OR, THE BOOK OF CONCEALED MYSTERY. CHAPTER I. 1. Tradition .--"The Book of Concealed Mystery" is the book of the equilibrium of balance. [The word "Dtzenioutha" is difficult to translate, but…”

◆The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1b

“[But the first idea of equilibrium is the Ancient One (the first Sephira, or Crown Kether), because it is the first potential limitation of the boundless light which proceeds from the Limitless One. That is, the central point of Kether is…”

◆Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) | Section 1e

“He produced Oin, predominant in Anger, crowned, combined, and formed Capricornus in the world, Tebet in the year, and the liver in man. 11. He produced Tzaddi, predominant in Taste, crowned, combined, and formed Aquarius in the world, Seb…”

◇Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) | Section 1a

“Wescott, tr. (1887) CHAPTER 1 1. In two and thirty most occult and wonderful paths of wisdom did JAH the Lord of Hosts engrave his name: God of the armies of Israel, ever-living God, merciful and gracious, sublime, dwelling on high, who i…”

◇Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) | Section 1f

“The Third Path is the Sanctifying Intelligence, and is the basis of foundation of Primordial Wisdom, which is called the Former of faith, and its roots, Amen; and it is the parent of Faith, from which virtues doth Faith emanate. The Fourth…”

◇Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) | Section 1g

“The Eighteenth Path is called the House of Influence (by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things upon created beings is increased) and from the midst of the investigation the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth, whic…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | PROLOGUEb

“Knowest thou why thy mirror reflects not? Because the rust has not been scoured from its face. If it were purified from all rust and defilement, It would reflect the shining of the SUN Of GOD.6 O friends, ye have now heard this tale, Whic…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY Ve

“"In yourselves are signs; will ye not behold them?" (Koran li, 21). 12. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 92. Mr. Mansel (Bampton Lectures, p. 49) says: "A thing can be known as that which it is only by being distinguished from that which it is n…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY IXd

“I knew of myself what ye thought, But I desired that ye should speak it; As this boasting of yours is very improper, So shall my mercy be shown to prevail over my wrath: O angels, in order to show forth that prevailing, I inspired that pret…”

◆The Mabinogion | Tale TALIESINj

“And the king caused them to fetch Elphin in haste from his dungeon, and placed him before Taliesin. And it is said, that immediately he sang a verse, so that the chains opened from about his feet. “I adore the Supreme, Lord of all animati…”

◆The Kalevala | Rune XXIe

“Spake again wise Wainamoinen, When his wonder-tales had ended: "l have little worth or power, Am a bard of little value, Little consequence my singing, Mine abilities as nothing, If but Ukko, my Creator, Should intone his wisdom-sayings, Si…”