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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
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      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "1-the-animate-and-the-man",
    "title": "I.1 — The Animate and the Man",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 4409,
    "text": "## FIRST TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FIRST TRACTATE.\n\nTHE ANIMATE AND THE MAN.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion,\nwhere have these affections and experiences their seat?\n\nClearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as\nemploying the\nbody, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third\nentity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a\nblend or a distinct form due to the blending.\n\nAnd what applies to the affections applies also to whatsoever\nacts, physical or mental, spring from them.\n\nWe have, therefore, to examine discursive-reason and the\nordinary mental action upon objects of sense, and enquire whether\nthese have the one seat with the affections and experiences, or\nperhaps sometimes the one seat, sometimes another.\n\nAnd we must consider also our acts of Intellection,\ntheir mode and\ntheir seat.\n\nAnd this very examining principle, which investigates and\ndecides in these matters, must be brought to light.\n\nFirstly, what is the seat of Sense-Perception? This is\nthe obvious\nbeginning since the affections and experiences either are sensations\nof some kind or at least never occur apart from sensation.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. This first enquiry obliges us to consider at the outset the\nnature of the Soul- that is whether a distinction is to be made\nbetween Soul and Essential Soul [between an individual Soul and the\nSoul-Kind in itself]. *\n\n* All matter shown in brackets is added by the translator for\nclearness' sake and, therefore, is not canonical. S.M.\n\nIf such a distinction holds, then the Soul [in man] is some sort\nof a composite and at once we may agree that it is a\nrecipient and- if\nonly reason allows- that all the affections and experiences really\nhave their seat in the Soul, and with the affections every state and\nmood, good and bad alike.\n\nBut if Soul [in man] and Essential Soul are one and the\nsame, then\nthe Soul will be an Ideal-Form unreceptive of all those activities\nwhich it imparts to another Kind but possessing within itself that\nnative Act of its own which Reason manifests.\n\nIf this be so, then, indeed, we may think of the Soul as an\nimmortal- if the immortal, the imperishable, must be\nimpassive, giving\nout something of itself but itself taking nothing from without\nexcept for what it receives from the Existents prior to itself from\nwhich Existents, in that they are the nobler, it cannot be sundered.\n\nNow what could bring fear to a nature thus unreceptive of all\nthe outer? Fear demands feeling. Nor is there place for courage:\ncourage implies the presence of danger. And such desires as are\nsatisfied by the filling or voiding of the body, must be proper to\nsomething very different from the Soul, to that only which admits of\nreplenishment and voidance.\n\nAnd how could the Soul lend itself to any admixture? An\nessential is not mixed. Or of the intrusion of anything alien? If it\ndid, it would be seeking the destruction of its own nature. Pain\nmust be equally far from it. And Grief- how or for what could it\ngrieve? Whatever possesses Existence is supremely free, dwelling,\nunchangeable, within its own peculiar nature. And can any increase\nbring joy, where nothing, not even anything good, can accrue? What\nsuch an Existent is, it is unchangeably.\n\nThus assuredly Sense-Perception, Discursive-Reasoning;\nand all our\nordinary mentation are foreign to the Soul: for sensation is a\nreceiving- whether of an Ideal-Form or of an impassive body- and\nreasoning and all ordinary mental action deal with sensation.\n\nThe question still remains to be examined in the matter of the\nintellections- whether these are to be assigned to the Soul-\nand as to\nPure-Pleasure, whether this belongs to the Soul in its\nsolitary state.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. We may treat of the Soul as in the body- whether it be set\nabove it or actually within it- since the association of the two\nconstitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.\n\nNow from this relation, from the Soul using the body as an\ninstrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body's\nexperiences: a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the\ntools with which he is working.\n\nIt may be objected that the Soul must however, have\nSense-Perception since its use of its instrument must\nacquaint it with\nthe external conditions, and such knowledge comes by way of sense.\nThus, it will be argued, the eyes are the instrument of seeing, and\nseeing may bring distress to the soul: hence the Soul may feel\nsorrow and pain and every other affection that belongs to the body;\nand from this again will spring desire, the Soul seeking the mending\nof its instrument.\n\nBut, we ask, how, possibly, can these affections pass\nfrom body to\nSoul? Body may communicate qualities or conditions to another body:\nbut- body to Soul? Something happens to A; does that make it\nhappen to\nB? As long as we have agent and instrument, there are two distinct\nentities; if the Soul uses the body it is separate from it.\n\nBut apart from the philosophical separation how does\nSoul stand to\nbody?\n\nClearly there is a combination. And for this several modes are\npossible. There might be a complete coalescence: Soul might be\ninterwoven through the body: or it might be an Ideal-Form detached\nor an Ideal-Form in governing contact like a pilot: or there might\nbe part of the Soul detached and another part in contact, the\ndisjoined part being the agent or user, the conjoined part ranking\nwith the instrument or thing used.\n\nIn this last case it will be the double task of philosophy to\ndirect this lower Soul towards the higher, the agent, and\nexcept in so\nfar as the conjunction is absolutely necessary, to sever the agent\nfrom the instrument, the body, so that it need not forever have its\nAct upon or through this inferior.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. Let us consider, then, the hypothesis of a coalescence.\n\nNow if there is a coalescence, the lower is ennobled, the nobler\ndegraded; the body is raised in the scale of being as made\nparticipant\nin life; the Soul, as associated with death and unreason, is brought\nlower. How can a lessening of the life-quality produce an increase\nsuch as Sense-Perception?\n\nNo: the body has acquired life, it is the body that will\nacquire, with life, sensation and the affections coming by\nsensation. Desire, then, will belong to the body, as the objects of\ndesire are to be enjoyed by the body. And fear, too, will belong to\nthe body alone; for it is the body's doom to fail of its joys and to\nperish.\n\nThen again we should have to examine how such a coalescence\ncould be conceived: we might find it impossible: perhaps all this is\nlike announcing the coalescence of things utterly\nincongruous in kind,\nlet us say of a line and whiteness.\n\nNext for the suggestion that the Soul is interwoven through the\nbody: such a relation would not give woof and warp community of\nsensation: the interwoven element might very well suffer no change:\nthe permeating soul might remain entirely untouched by what affects\nthe body- as light goes always free of all it floods- and\nall the more\nso, since, precisely, we are asked to consider it as diffused\nthroughout the entire frame.\n\nUnder such an interweaving, then, the Soul would not be\nsubjected to the body's affections and experiences: it would be\npresent rather as Ideal-Form in Matter.\n\nLet us then suppose Soul to be in body as Ideal-Form in Matter.\nNow if- the first possibility- the Soul is an essence, a\nself-existent, it can be present only as separable form and will\ntherefore all the more decidedly be the Using-Principle [and\ntherefore\nunaffected].\n\nSuppose, next, the Soul to be present like axe-form on\niron: here,\nno doubt, the form is all important but it is still the axe, the\ncomplement of iron and form, that effects whatever is effected by\nthe iron thus modified: on this analogy, therefore, we are even more\nstrictly compelled to assign all the experiences of the\ncombination to\nthe body: their natural seat is the material member, the instrument,\nthe potential recipient of life.\n\nCompare the passage where we read* that \"it is absurd to suppose\nthat the Soul weaves\"; equally absurd to think of it as desiring,\ngrieving. All this is rather in the province of something\nwhich we may\ncall the Animate.\n\n* \"We read\" translates \"he says\" of the text, and always\nindicates\na reference to Plato, whose name does not appear in the translation\nexcept where it was written by Plotinus. S.M.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Now this Animate might be merely the body as having life: it\nmight be the Couplement of Soul and body: it might be a third and\ndifferent entity formed from both.\n\nThe Soul in turn- apart from the nature of the Animate- must be\neither impassive, merely causing Sense-Perception in its\nyoke-fellow, or sympathetic; and, if sympathetic, it may have\nidentical experiences with its fellow or merely correspondent\nexperiences: desire for example in the Animate may be something\nquite distinct from the accompanying movement or state in\nthe desiring\nfaculty.\n\nThe body, the live-body as we know it, we will consider later.\n\nLet us take first the Couplement of body and Soul. How could\nsuffering, for example, be seated in this Couplement?\n\nIt may be suggested that some unwelcome state of the\nbody produces\na distress which reaches to a Sensitive-Faculty which in turn merges\ninto Soul. But this account still leaves the origin of the sensation\nunexplained.\n\nAnother suggestion might be that all is due to an opinion or\njudgement: some evil seems to have befallen the man or his\nbelongings and this conviction sets up a state of trouble in the\nbody and in the entire Animate. But this account leaves still a\nquestion as to the source and seat of the judgement: does it\nbelong to\nthe Soul or to the Couplement? Besides, the judgement that evil is\npresent does not involve the feeling of grief: the judgement might\nvery well arise and the grief by no means follow: one may think\noneself slighted and yet not be angry; and the appetite is not\nnecessarily excited by the thought of a pleasure. We are, thus, no\nnearer than before to any warrant for assigning these affections to\nthe Couplement.\n\nIs it any explanation to say that desire is vested in a\nFaculty-of-desire and anger in the Irascible-Faculty and,\ncollectively, that all tendency is seated in the Appetitive-Faculty?\nSuch a statement of the facts does not help towards making the\naffections common to the Couplement; they might still be\nseated either\nin the Soul alone or in the body alone. On the one hand if the\nappetite is to be stirred, as in the carnal passion, there must be a\nheating of the blood and the bile, a well-defined state of the body;\non the other hand, the impulse towards The Good cannot be a joint\naffection, but, like certain others too, it would belong necessarily\nto the Soul alone.\n\nReason, then, does not permit us to assign all the affections to\nthe Couplement.\n\nIn the case of carnal desire, it will certainly be the Man that\ndesires, and yet, on the other hand, there must be desire in the\nDesiring-Faculty as well. How can this be? Are we to suppose that,\nwhen the man originates the desire, the Desiring-Faculty moves to\nthe order? How could the Man have come to desire at all\nunless through\na prior activity in the Desiring-Faculty? Then it is the\nDesiring-Faculty that takes the lead? Yet how, unless the body be\nfirst in the appropriate condition?\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. It may seem reasonable to lay down as a law that when any\npowers are contained by a recipient, every action or state\nexpressive of them must be the action or state of that\nrecipient, they\nthemselves remaining unaffected as merely furnishing efficiency.\n\nBut if this were so, then, since the Animate is the recipient of\nthe Causing-Principle [i.e., the Soul] which brings life to the\nCouplement, this Cause must itself remain unaffected, all the\nexperiences and expressive activities of the life being vested in\nthe recipient, the Animate.\n\nBut this would mean that life itself belongs not to the Soul but\nto the Couplement; or at least the life of the Couplement\nwould not be\nthe life of the Soul; Sense-Perception would belong not to the\nSensitive-Faculty but to the container of the faculty.\n\nBut if sensation is a movement traversing the body and\nculminating\nin Soul, how the soul lack sensation? The very presence of the\nSensitive-Faculty must assure sensation to the Soul.\n\nOnce again, where is Sense-Perception seated?\n\nIn the Couplement.\n\nYet how can the Couplement have sensation independently of\naction in the Sensitive-Faculty, the Soul left out of count and the\nSoul-Faculty?\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. The truth lies in the Consideration that the Couplement\nsubsists by virtue of the Soul's presence.\n\nThis, however, is not to say that the Soul gives itself as it is\nin itself to form either the Couplement or the body.\n\nNo; from the organized body and something else, let us say a\nlight, which the Soul gives forth from itself, it forms a distinct\nPrinciple, the Animate; and in this Principle are vested\nSense-Perception and all the other experiences found to belong to\nthe Animate.\n\nBut the \"We\"? How have We Sense-Perception?\n\nBy the fact that We are not separate from the Animate so\nconstituted, even though certainly other and nobler elements go to\nmake up the entire many-sided nature of Man.\n\nThe faculty of perception in the Soul cannot act by the\nimmediate grasping of sensible objects, but only by the discerning\nof impressions printed upon the Animate by sensation: these\nimpressions are already Intelligibles while the outer sensation is a\nmere phantom of the other [of that in the Soul] which is nearer to\nAuthentic-Existence as being an impassive reading of Ideal-Forms.\n\nAnd by means of these Ideal-Forms, by which the Soul\nwields single\nlordship over the Animate, we have Discursive-Reasoning,\nSense-Knowledge and Intellection. From this moment we have\npeculiarly the We: before this there was only the \"Ours\"; but at\nthis stage stands the WE [the authentic Human-Principle] loftily\npresiding over the Animate.\n\nThere is no reason why the entire compound entity should not be\ndescribed as the Animate or Living-Being- mingled in a lower phase,\nbut above that point the beginning of the veritable man,\ndistinct from\nall that is kin to the lion, all that is of the order of the\nmultiple brute. And since The Man, so understood, is essentially the\nassociate of the reasoning Soul, in our reasoning it is this\n\"We\" that\nreasons, in that the use and act of reason is a characteristic Act\nof the Soul.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. And towards the Intellectual-Principle what is our\nrelation? By\nthis I mean, not that faculty in the soul which is one of the\nemanations from the Intellectual-Principle, but The\nIntellectual-Principle itself [Divine-Mind].\n\nThis also we possess as the summit of our being. And we have It\neither as common to all or as our own immediate possession: or again\nwe may possess It in both degrees, that is in common, since It is\nindivisible- one, everywhere and always Its entire self- and\nseverally\nin that each personality possesses It entire in the First-Soul [i.e.\nin the Intellectual as distinguished from the lower phase of the\nSoul].\n\nHence we possess the Ideal-Forms also after two modes: in the\nSoul, as it were unrolled and separate; in the\nIntellectual-Principle,\nconcentrated, one.\n\nAnd how do we possess the Divinity?\n\nIn that the Divinity is contained in the Intellectual-Principle\nand Authentic-Existence; and We come third in order after these two,\nfor the We is constituted by a union of the supreme, the undivided\nSoul- we read- and that Soul which is divided among [living] bodies.\nFor, note, we inevitably think of the Soul, though one undivided in\nthe All, as being present to bodies in division: in so far as any\nbodies are Animates, the Soul has given itself to each of\nthe separate\nmaterial masses; or rather it appears to be present in the bodies by\nthe fact that it shines into them: it makes them living beings not\nby merging into body but by giving forth, without any change in\nitself, images or likenesses of itself like one face caught by many\nmirrors.\n\nThe first of these images is Sense-Perception seated in the\nCouplement; and from this downwards all the successive images are to\nbe recognized as phases of the Soul in lessening succession from one\nanother, until the series ends in the faculties of generation and\ngrowth and of all production of offspring- offspring efficient in\nits turn, in contradistinction to the engendering Soul which [has no\ndirect action within matter but] produces by mere inclination\ntowards what it fashions.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. That Soul, then, in us, will in its nature stand\napart from all\nthat can cause any of the evils which man does or suffers; for all\nsuch evil, as we have seen, belongs only to the Animate, the\nCouplement.\n\nBut there is a difficulty in understanding how the Soul can go\nguiltless if our mentation and reasoning are vested in it: for all\nthis lower kind of knowledge is delusion and is the cause of much of\nwhat is evil.\n\nWhen we have done evil it is because we have been worsted by our\nbaser side- for a man is many- by desire or rage or some evil image:\nthe misnamed reasoning that takes up with the false, in\nreality fancy,\nhas not stayed for the judgement of the Reasoning-Principle: we have\nacted at the call of the less worthy, just as in matters of the\nsense-sphere we sometimes see falsely because we credit only\nthe lower\nperception, that of the Couplement, without applying the tests of\nthe Reasoning-Faculty.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle has held aloof from the act and so is\nguiltless; or, as we may state it, all depends on whether we\nourselves\nhave or have not put ourselves in touch with the Intellectual-Realm\neither in the Intellectual-Principle or within ourselves; for it is\npossible at once to possess and not to use.\n\nThus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what\nstands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never\nexists apart from body, while all that has no need of body for its\nmanifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul: and the Understanding, as\npassing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the\nvision of Ideal-Forms, seeing them as it were with an answering\nsensation (i.e, with consciousness) this last is at any rate true of\nthe Understanding in the Veritable Soul. For Understanding, the\ntrue, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations\nit is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.\n\nThus in spite of all, the Soul is at peace as to itself\nand within\nitself: all the changes and all the turmoil we experience are the\nissue of what is subjoined to the Soul, and are, as have said, the\nstates and experiences of this elusive \"Couplement.\"\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. It will be objected, that if the Soul constitutes the We\n[the personality] and We are subject to these states then the Soul\nmust be subject to them, and similarly that what We do must\nbe done by\nthe Soul.\n\nBut it has been observed that the Couplement, too- especially\nbefore our emancipation- is a member of this total We, and in fact\nwhat the body experiences we say We experience. This then covers two\ndistinct notions; sometimes it includes the brute-part, sometimes it\ntranscends the brute. The body is brute touched to life; the true\nman is the other, going pure of the body, natively endowed with the\nvirtues which belong to the Intellectual-Activity, virtues whose\nseat is the Separate Soul, the Soul which even in its dwelling here\nmay be kept apart. [This Soul constitutes the human being]\nfor when it\nhas wholly withdrawn, that other Soul which is a radiation [or\nemanation] from it withdraws also, drawn after it.\n\nThose virtues, on the other hand, which spring not from\ncontemplative wisdom but from custom or practical discipline\nbelong to\nthe Couplement: to the Couplement, too, belong the vices;\nthey are its\nrepugnances, desires, sympathies.\n\nAnd Friendship?\n\nThis emotion belongs sometimes to the lower part,\nsometimes to the\ninterior man.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. In childhood the main activity is in the Couplement and\nthere is but little irradiation from the higher principles of our\nbeing: but when these higher principles act but feebly or rarely\nupon us their action is directed towards the Supreme; they work upon\nus only when they stand at the mid-point.\n\nBut does not the include that phase of our being which stands\nabove the mid-point?\n\nIt does, but on condition that we lay hold of it: our entire\nnature is not ours at all times but only as we direct the mid-point\nupwards or downwards, or lead some particular phase of our\nnature from\npotentiality or native character into act.\n\nAnd the animals, in what way or degree do they possess the\nAnimate?\n\nIf there be in them, as the opinion goes, human Souls that have\nsinned, then the Animating-Principle in its separable phase does not\nenter directly into the brute; it is there but not there to\nthem; they\nare aware only of the image of the Soul [only of the lower Soul] and\nof that only by being aware of the body organised and determined by\nthat image.\n\nIf there be no human Soul in them, the Animate is constituted\nfor them by a radiation from the All-Soul.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. But if Soul is sinless, how come the expiations? Here surely\nis a contradiction; on the one side the Soul is above all guilt; on\nthe other, we hear of its sin, its purification, its expiation; it\nis doomed to the lower world, it passes from body to body.\n\nWe may take either view at will: they are easily reconciled.\n\nWhen we tell of the sinless Soul, we make Soul and\nEssential-Soul one and the same: it is the simple unbroken Unity.\n\nBy the Soul subject to sin we indicate a groupment, we include\nthat other, that phase of the Soul which knows all the states and\npassions: the Soul in this sense is compound, all-inclusive: it\nfalls under the conditions of the entire living experience: this\ncompound it is that sins; it is this, and not the other, that pays\npenalty.\n\nIt is in this sense that we read of the Soul: \"We saw it as\nthose others saw the sea-god Glaukos.\" \"And,\" reading on, \"if we\nmean to discern the nature of the Soul we must strip it free of all\nthat has gathered about it, must see into the philosophy of it,\nexamine with what Existences it has touch and by kinship to what\nExistences it is what it is.\"\n\nThus the Life is one thing, the Act is another and the Expiator\nyet another. The retreat and sundering, then, must be not from this\nbody only, but from every alien accruement. Such accruement takes\nplace at birth; or rather birth is the coming-into-being of\nthat other\n[lower] phase of the Soul. For the meaning of birth has been\nindicated\nelsewhere; it is brought about by a descent of the Soul, something\nbeing given off by the Soul other than that actually coming down in\nthe declension.\n\nThen the Soul has let this image fall? And this declension is it\nnot certainly sin?\n\nIf the declension is no more than the illuminating of an object\nbeneath, it constitutes no sin: the shadow is to be attributed not\nto the luminary but to the object illuminated; if the object were\nnot there, the light could cause no shadow.\n\nAnd the Soul is said to go down, to decline, only in that the\nobject it illuminates lives by its life. And it lets the image fall\nonly if there be nothing near to take it up; and it lets it fall,\nnot as a thing cut off, but as a thing that ceases to be: the image\nhas no further being when the whole Soul is looking toward the\nSupreme.\n\nThe poet, too, in the story of Hercules, seems to give this\nimage separate existence; he puts the shade of Hercules in the lower\nworld and Hercules himself among the gods: treating the hero as\nexisting in the two realms at once, he gives us a twofold Hercules.\n\nIt is not difficult to explain this distinction. Hercules was a\nhero of practical virtue. By his noble serviceableness he was worthy\nto be a God. On the other hand, his merit was action and not the\nContemplation which would place him unreservedly in the higher\nrealm. Therefore while he has place above, something of him remains\nbelow.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. And the principle that reasons out these matters? Is it We\nor the Soul?\n\nWe, but by the Soul.\n\nBut how \"by the Soul\"? Does this mean that the Soul reasons by\npossession [by contact with the matters of enquiry]?\n\nNo; by the fact of being Soul. Its Act subsists without\nmovement; or any movement that can be ascribed to it must be utterly\ndistinct from all corporal movement and be simply the Soul's\nown life.\n\nAnd Intellection in us is twofold: since the Soul is\nintellective,\nand Intellection is the highest phase of life, we have Intellection\nboth by the characteristic Act of our Soul and by the Act of the\nIntellectual-Principle upon us- for this Intellectual-Principle is\npart of us no less than the Soul, and towards it we are ever rising.",
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