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Select Works of Plotinus · 306 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

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 then concerned with, that the heavens are ensouled- a teaching which he maintains in the observation that it is preposterous to make the heavens soulless when we, who contain a part of the body of the All, have a soul; how, he asks, could there be soul in the part and none in the total. He makes his teaching quite clear in the Timaeus, where he shows us the other souls brought into existence after the All-Soul, but compounded from the same mixing bowl"; secondary and tertiary are duly marked off from the primal but every form of soul is presented as being of identical ideal-nature with the All-Soul. As for saying of the Phaedrus. "All that is soul cares for all that is soulless," this simply tells us that the corporeal kind cannot be controlled- fashioned, set in place or brought into being- by anything but the Soul. And we cannot think that there is one soul whose nature includes this power and another without it. "The perfect soul, that of the All," we read, "going its lofty journey, operates upon the kosmos not by sinking into it, but, as it were, by brooding over it"; and "every perfect soul exercises this governance"; he distinguishes the other, the soul in this sphere as "the soul when its wing is broken." As for our souls being entrained in the kosmic circuit, and taking character and condition thence; this is no indication that they are parts: soul-nature may very well take some tincture from even the qualities of place, from water and from air; residence in this city or in that, and the varying make-up of the body may have their influence [upon our human souls which, yet, are no parts of place or of body]. We have always admitted that as members of the universe we take over something from the All-Soul; we do not deny the influence of the Kosmic Circuit; but against all this we oppose another soul in us [the Intellectual as distinguished from the merely vitalizing] proven to be distinct by that power of opposition. As for our being begotten children of the kosmos, we answer that in motherhood the entrant soul is distinct, is not the mother's.
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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] It contrasts the embodied state with the disembodied state, highlighting the difficulty of soul in body.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

[auto] It references the 'eternal identity of that Essence' which secures unity despite differentiation.

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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 text distinguishes between the Intellectual-Principle and the Soul, noting differentiation from a primal source.

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Monadcosmology

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

[auto] The concept of an undivided 'Essence' maintaining identity through differentiation aligns with the monadic principle.

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Paradox As Teachingethics

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

[auto] The author explicitly frames the discussion around meeting 'problems' and 'difficulties' regarding metaphysical presence.

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Soul Migrationcosmology

The transmigration of the soul across lives.

The text mentions the human soul leaving the body, implying movement between states of embodiment.

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Spiritual Ascentpraxis

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The discussion of the soul going 'free of the body' implies a movement away from material constraint.

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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.

[auto] The passage centrally debates the metaphysical problem of how the soul maintains unity while present in multiple bodies.

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