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Select Works of Plotinus · 352 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

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 well? No: prior and past are in the things its produces; in itself nothing is past; all, as we have said, is one simultaneous grouping of Reason-Principles. In the engendered, dissimilarity is not compatible with unity, though in the Reason-Principles supporting the engendered such unity of dissimilars does occur- hand and foot are in unity in the Reason-Principle [of man], but apart in the realm of sense. Of course, even in that ideal realm there is apartness, but in a characteristic mode, just as in a mode, there is priority. Now, apartness may be explained as simply differentiation: but how account for priority unless on the assumption of some ordering principle arranging from above, and in that disposal necessarily affirming a serial order? There must be such a principle, or all would exist simultaneously; but the indicated conclusion does not follow unless order and ordering principle are distinct; if the ordering principle is Primal Order, there is no such affirmation of series; there is simply making, the making of this thing after that thing. The affirmation would imply that the ordering principle looks away towards Order and therefore is not, itself, Order. But how are Order and this orderer one and the same? Because the ordering principle is no conjoint of matter and idea but is soul, pure idea, the power and energy second only to the Intellectual-Principle: and because the succession is a fact of the things themselves, inhibited as they are from this comprehensive unity. The ordering soul remains august, a circle, as we may figure it, in complete adaptation to its centre, widening outward, but fast upon it still, an outspreading without interval. The total scheme may be summarized in the illustration of The Good as a centre, the Intellectual-Principle as an unmoving circle, the Soul as a circle in motion, its moving being its aspiration: the Intellectual-Principle possesses and has ever embraced that which is beyond being; the soul must seek it still: the sphere of the universe, by its possession of the soul thus aspirant, is moved to the aspiration which falls within its own nature; this is no more than such power as body may have, the mode of pursuit possible where the object pursued is debarred from entrance; it is the motion of coiling about, with ceaseless return upon the same path- in other words, it is circuit.
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Themes
Active Contemplationpraxis

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

The Soul's consciousness is defined as its 'intellection' of what is eternally present to it, distinguishing it from Nature's unconscious production.

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Correspondencecosmology

The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.

Nature is described as an 'image' of Wisdom with an imprint that penetrates to the uttermost film, reflecting the higher principle in the lower.

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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.

The passage describes principles communicating to what lies in next contact, making that also warm in some less degree.

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Demiurgecosmology

A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.

Nature is described as producing the material world automatically without knowledge, functionally resembling an ignorant creator principle though not termed a deity.

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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 describes Wisdom as 'conducting the universe' and the Soul receiving from the Intellectual-Principle to order existence.

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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 centrally describes a descending order of principles from Wisdom to Nature to corporeal matter, illustrating the flow of the Reason-Principle.

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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.

Matter and Nature are described as the 'ultimates' and 'imitative,' suggesting a deficiency or lack compared to the Intellectual order.

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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 text explicitly mentions the 'Reason-Principle' as the mediating force transmitted from the Soul through Nature to the material world.

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Monadcosmology

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

The text implies a 'still higher phase' beyond the Soul and Intellectual-Principle from which all being flows.

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Related passages · 11 parallels
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