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Select Works of Plotinus · 674 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 645

Section 6 6. But how can that higher soul have sense-perception? It is the perception of what falls under perception There, sensation in the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's perception of the sense-realm in its correspondence with the Intellectual. Man as sense-percipient becomes aware of that correspondence and accommodates the sense-realm to the lowest extremity of its counterpart There, proceeding from the fire Intellectual to the fire here which becomes perceptible by its analogy with that of the higher sphere. If material things existed There, the soul would perceive them; Man in the Intellectual, Man as Intellectual soul, would be aware of the terrestrial. This is how the secondary Man, copy of Man in the Intellectual, contains the Reason-Principles in copy; and Man in the Intellectual-Principle contained the Man that existed before any man. The diviner shines out upon the secondary and the secondary upon the tertiary; and even the latest possesses them all- not in the sense of actually living by them all but as standing in under-parallel to them. Some of us act by this lowest; in another rank there is a double activity, a trace of the higher being included; in yet another there is a blending of the third grade with the others: each is that Man by which he acts while each too contains all the grades, though in some sense not so. On the separation of the third life and third Man from the body, then if the second also departs- of course not losing hold on the Above- the two, as we are told, will occupy the same place. No doubt it seems strange that a soul which has been the Reason-Principle of a man should come to occupy the body of an animal: but the soul has always been all, and will at different times be this and that. Pure, not yet fallen to evil, the soul chooses man and is man, for this is the higher, and it produces the higher. It produces also the still loftier beings, the Celestials [Daimons], who are of one Form with the soul that makes Man: higher still stands that Man more entirely of the Celestial rank, almost a god, reproducing God, a Celestial closely bound to God as a man is to Man. For that Being into which man develops is not to be called a god; there remains the difference which distinguishes souls, all of the same race though they be. This is taking "Celestial" ["Daimon"] in the sense of Plato. When a soul which in the human state has been thus attached chooses animal nature and descends to that, it is giving forth the Reason-Principle- necessarily in it- of that particular animal: this lower it contained and the activity has been to the lower.
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Themes
Active Contemplationpraxis

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

The passage references the Intellectual-Principle 'seeing' reality and the use of conception to understand the Absolute Line.

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Apophatic Theologytheology

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

[auto] The text defines the Intellectual Line by negating quantitative attributes and limits rather than affirming positive material properties.

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Body As Obstacleanthropology

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

The passage contrasts perfect configurations without extension against the extended bodily reproductions that require external support.

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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.

It asserts that configurations of the universe exist antecedently in the Intellectual realm before their bodily reproductions.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

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

[auto] It describes the Intellectual Line as without quantity or limit, reflecting a non-composite mode of being distinct from material extension.

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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.

It distinguishes between the actual quantitative world and the higher realm of Intellectual Beings where true infinity resides.

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Infinite Cosmoscosmology

The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.

The text discusses the concept of an infinite line and number in relation to the path of the universe, though distinguishing intellectual from quantitative infinity.

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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.

The Intellectual-Principle functions as the ordering reason that precedes and structures the Living-Form and material configurations.

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Monadcosmology

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

Unity is described as a fundamental observation within the Intellectual Line and Real-Being, reflecting the principle of undivided existence.

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Numerical Mysticismtheology

Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.

[auto] The passage centrally investigates the metaphysical nature of Infinite Number and its existence within the Intellectual realm.

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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 text emphasizes that 'all is one' and that the Intellectual-Principle is not external to the Life-Form.

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Related passages · 13 parallels
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Shared concept: Body As Obstacle — The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return. (derived)
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Shared concept: Active Contemplation — A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness. (derived)
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