Select Works of Plotinus · 94 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor
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, and is subject to no hindrance or control, for in itself it is all that is. And men? As a self, each is a personal whole, no doubt; but as member of the universe, each is a partial thing. But if, wherever the circling body be, it possesses the Soul, what need of the circling? Because everywhere it finds something else besides the Soul [which it desires to possess alone]. The circular movement would be explained, too, if the Soul's power may be taken as resident at its centre. Here, however, we must distinguish between a centre in reference to the two different natures, body and Soul. In body, centre is a point of place; in Soul it is a source, the source of some other nature. The word, which without qualification would mean the midpoint of a spheric mass, may serve in the double reference; and, as in a material mass so in the Soul, there must be a centre, that around which the object, Soul or material mass, revolves. The Soul exists in revolution around God to whom it clings in love, holding itself to the utmost of its power near to Him as the Being on which all depends; and since it cannot coincide with God it circles about Him. Why then do not all souls [i.e., the lower, also, as those of men and animals] thus circle about the Godhead? Every Soul does in its own rank and place. And why not our very bodies, also? Because the forward path is characteristic of body and because all the body's impulses are to other ends and because what in us is of this circling nature is hampered in its motion by the clay it bears with it, while in the higher realm everything flows on its course, lightly and easily, with nothing to check it, once there is any principle of motion in it at all. And it may very well be that even in us the Spirit which dwells with the Soul does thus circle about the divinity. For since God is omnipresent the Soul desiring perfect union must take the circular course: God is not stationed. Similarly Plato attributes to the stars not only the spheric movement belonging to the universe as a whole but also to each a revolution around their common centre; each- not by way of thought but by links of natural necessity- has in its own place taken hold of God and exults.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The omnipresent Soul communicates its quality to the heavens, binding the parts of the cosmos through shared presence and motion.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
[auto] The text defines Nature as the custom established by the All-Soul and describes the Soul ceaselessly leading the Kosmos, embodying active ordering.
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
[auto] The passage explicitly describes the Soul as 'Omnipresent in its entirety, incapable of division,' which is the core definition of divine simplicity.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text implies a hierarchy where Nature is the custom established by the All-Soul, indicating a flow from higher to lower principle.