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Select Works of Plotinus · 194 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

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- then, this its product, so produced, would be of supreme and unparalleled excellence. But the Reason-Principle could not be a thing of entire identity or even of closely compact diversity; and the mode in which it is here manifested is no matter of censure since its function is to be all things, each single thing in some distinctive way. But has it not, besides itself entering Matter, brought other beings down? Has it not for example brought Souls into Matter and, in adapting them to its creation, twisted them against their own nature and been the ruin of many of them? And can this be right? The answer is that the Souls are, in a fair sense, members of this Reason-Principle and that it has not adapted them to the creation by perverting them, but has set them in the place here to which their quality entitles them.
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Themes
Cosmic Sympathycosmology

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.

Acknowledges a 'universal relationship' and 'celestial movement' while denying they coercively determine human action.

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Divine Providencetheology

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.

The text debates whether Necessity or human agency governs wickedness within the order established by the First Cause.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

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 relationship between the 'First Cause' and the 'Reason-Principle' implies a downward flow of principles.

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Evil As Privationtheology

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

The passage argues that evil is not rooted in Nature or the Reason-Principle but arises from human choice and lack of desire for good.

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Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

[auto] The passage explicitly references the 'Reason-Principle of the universe' as a creator figure in its argument about evil.

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Monadcosmology

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

The text mentions the 'First Cause' as the ultimate source behind the sequence of existence.

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Related passages · 9 parallels
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