Select Works of Plotinus · 554 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor
Select Works, Section 530
Section 23 23. As for Possession, if the term is used comprehensively, why are not all its modes to be brought under one category? Possession, thus, would include the quantum as possessing magnitude, the quale as possessing colour; it would include fatherhood and the complementary relationships, since the father possesses the son and the son possesses the father: in short, it would include all belongings. If, on the contrary, the category of Possession comprises only the things of the body, such as weapons and shoes, we first ask why this should be so, and why their possession produces a single category, while burning, cutting, burying or casting them out do not give another or others. If it is because these things are carried on the person, then one's mantle lying on a couch will come under a different category from that of the mantle covering the person. If the ownership of possession suffices, then clearly one must refer to the one category of Possession all objects identified by being possessed, every case in which possession can be established; the character of the possessed object will make no difference. If however Possession is not to be predicated of Quality because Quality stands recognised as a category, nor of Quantity because the category of Quantity has been received, nor of parts because they have been assigned to the category of Substance, why should we predicate Possession of weapons, when they too are comprised in the accepted category of Substance? Shoes and weapons are clearly substances. How, further, is "He possesses weapons," signifying as it does that the action of arming has been performed by a subject, to be regarded as an entirely simple notion, assignable to a single category? Again, is Possession to be restricted to an animate possessor, or does it hold good even of a statue as possessing the objects above mentioned? The animate and inanimate seem to possess in different ways, and the term is perhaps equivocal. Similarly, "standing" has not the same connotation as applied to the animate and the inanimate. Besides, how can it be reasonable for what is found only in a limited number of cases to form a distinct generic category?
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 text establishes a priority of Act over Motion with subordination, reflecting the hierarchical structure of perfection found in emanation.
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 frames imperfection in motion as a 'deficiency' or lack of goal completion rather than an inherent flaw in the act itself.