Select Works of Plotinus · 243 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

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 some drying agency: we say a subject is modified when from warm it becomes cold, from dry wet. A further evidence is in our speaking of a fire being burned out, when it has passed over into another element; we do not say that the Matter has been burned out: in other words, modification affects what is subject to dissolution; the acceptance of modification is the path towards dissolution; susceptibility to modification and susceptibility to dissolution go necessarily together. But Matter can never be dissolved. What into? By what process? Still: Matter harbours heat, cold, qualities beyond all count; by these it is differentiated; it holds them as if they were of its very substance and they blend within it- since no quality is found isolated to itself- Matter lies there as the meeting ground of all these qualities with their changes as they act and react in the blend: how, then, can it fail to be modified in keeping? The only escape would be to declare Matter utterly and for ever apart from the qualities it exhibits; but the very notion of Substance implies that any and every thing present in it has some action upon it.

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Themes

Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

[auto] The text characterizes the body as approximating non-being, lacking recuperation power, and being the source of destruction and susceptibility.

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Cosmic Dualismtheology

Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.

The passage establishes a sharp opposition between the 'Kind directly opposed to Soul' (corporeal things) and the Soul's essential existence (Authentic Being).

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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.

[auto] The passage explicitly describes reality as a gradient of 'Being,' where higher participation in Being yields life and beneficence, while waning Being results in corporeality and non-being.

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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.

[auto] The passage explicitly defines bodily quality and matter as a 'waning of Being' and approximation to 'non-being,' aligning with the doctrine that evil is a lack of good.

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Monadcosmology

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

The reference to 'Being' as the source of life and beneficence peripherally implies the existence of a supreme first principle.

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Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

[auto] The passage concludes with the paradoxical statement 'weak is powerful' to describe the destructive nature of bodily collision arising from deficiency.

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Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The text describes the 'veritable waking or rising' as a movement away from corporeal things toward the 'Kind whose Being is Authentic,' indicating a return to origin.

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Separation From Sourcesoteriology

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

The Soul in body is described as 'asleep' and excluded from the 'Kind whose Being is Authentic,' depicting a state of exile or separation.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

The concept of 'participation in Being' implies a singular source or substance from which all existence derives its measure.

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Related passages · 4 parallels

theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 3 (part 7)

“Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause,"* which the Occultist more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the "Unknowable," may be essentially…”

Shared concept: Unity Of Being — The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim. (derived)

western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XVI (part 8)

“188 So writes Schopenhauer in his Counsels and Maxims , and indeed it is very effectively expressed, but we have no foundation whatsoever for regarding man as the summit of that which nature has created. This is only THE HIGHEST THAT WE KN…”

Shared concept: Cosmic Dualism — Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality. (derived)

christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 12 (part 12)

“255:1 However gratifying it may be for the curious seeker in history to know whether or when such an event has actually occurred in the history of the Jewish nation, such a historical belief would be of little benefit to him if he could not…”

Shared concept: Body As Obstacle — The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return. (derived)

sufism|The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi)|PROLOGUE-a

“HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains, Lamenting its banishment from its home: "Ever since they tore me from my osier bed, My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears. I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs, And t…”

Shared concept: Separation From Source — The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive. (derived)