Select Works of Plotinus · 374 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Select Works, Section 354
Section 34 34. For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly chattels. The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed. Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular items. It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in its relation to another and still less to any group of others, since each several being seems to have a natural tendency [or receptivity] of its own. The truth is that the configuration of any given group means merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the members, the relationship remains the same. But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions but to the beings holding those positions? To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power. But what power? That of causation or of indication? To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication. Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins following suit.
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.
The passage addresses the potential influence of celestial bodies on human affairs but denies astrological determinism regarding moral vice.
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 the extent of divine ordering by questioning whether the will of the stars or doom from the All determines human fate.
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 reference to inferiors relative to higher beings implies a structured order of existence descending from the divine.
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 implies evil actions are not divinely authored but fall beneath the level of existing beings with positive advantage.