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    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 2,
    "slug": "2-on-virtue",
    "title": "I.2 — On Virtue",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 3316,
    "text": "## SECOND TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SECOND TRACTATE.\n\nON VIRTUE.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Since Evil is here, \"haunting this world by necessary\nlaw,\" and\nit is the Soul's design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence.\n\nBut what is this escape?\n\n\"In attaining Likeness to God,\" we read. And this is explained\nas \"becoming just and holy, living by wisdom,\" the entire nature\ngrounded in Virtue.\n\nBut does not Likeness by way of Virtue imply Likeness to some\nbeing that has Virtue? To what Divine Being, then, would our\nLikeness be? To the Being- must we not think?- in Which, above all,\nsuch excellence seems to inhere, that is to the Soul of the\nKosmos and\nto the Principle ruling within it, the Principle endowed\nwith a wisdom\nmost wonderful. What could be more fitting than that we, living in\nthis world, should become Like to its ruler?\n\nBut, at the beginning, we are met by the doubt whether even in\nthis Divine-Being all the virtues find place- Moral-Balance\n[Sophrosyne], for example; or Fortitude where there can be no danger\nsince nothing is alien; where there can be nothing alluring\nwhose lack\ncould induce the desire of possession.\n\nIf, indeed, that aspiration towards the Intelligible which is in\nour nature exists also in this Ruling-Power, then need not look\nelsewhere for the source of order and of the virtues in ourselves.\n\nBut does this Power possess the Virtues?\n\nWe cannot expect to find There what are called the Civic\nVirtues, the Prudence which belongs to the reasoning faculty; the\nFortitude which conducts the emotional and passionate nature; the\nSophrosyne which consists in a certain pact, in a concord between\nthe passionate faculty and the reason; or Rectitude which is the due\napplication of all the other virtues as each in turn should\ncommand or\nobey.\n\nIs Likeness, then, attained, perhaps, not by these virtues of\nthe social order but by those greater qualities known by the same\ngeneral name? And if so do the Civic Virtues give us no help at all?\n\nIt is against reason, utterly to deny Likeness by these while\nadmitting it by the greater: tradition at least recognizes\ncertain men\nof the civic excellence as divine, and we must believe that these\ntoo had in some sort attained Likeness: on both levels there\nis virtue\nfor us, though not the same virtue.\n\nNow, if it be admitted that Likeness is possible, though by a\nvarying use of different virtues and though the civic virtues do not\nsuffice, there is no reason why we should not, by virtues peculiar\nto our state, attain Likeness to a model in which virtue has\nno place.\n\nBut is that conceivable?\n\nWhen warmth comes in to make anything warm, must there needs be\nsomething to warm the source of the warmth?\n\nIf a fire is to warm something else, must there be a fire to\nwarm that fire?\n\nAgainst the first illustration it may be retorted that the\nsource of the warmth does already contain warmth, not by an infusion\nbut as an essential phase of its nature, so that, if the\nanalogy is to\nhold, the argument would make Virtue something communicated to the\nSoul but an essential constituent of the Principle from\nwhich the Soul\nattaining Likeness absorbs it.\n\nAgainst the illustration drawn from the fire, it may be\nurged that\nthe analogy would make that Principle identical with virtue, whereas\nwe hold it to be something higher.\n\nThe objection would be valid if what the soul takes in were one\nand the same with the source, but in fact virtue is one thing, the\nsource of virtue quite another. The material house is not identical\nwith the house conceived in the intellect, and yet stands in its\nlikeness: the material house has distribution and order\nwhile the pure\nidea is not constituted by any such elements; distribution, order,\nsymmetry are not parts of an idea.\n\nSo with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and\ndistribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the\nExistences There, having no need of harmony, order or distribution,\nhave nothing to do with virtue; and, none the less, it is by our\npossession of virtue that we become like to Them.\n\nThus much to show that the principle that we attain Likeness by\nvirtue in no way involves the existence of virtue in the Supreme.\nBut we have not merely to make a formal demonstration: we must\npersuade as well as demonstrate.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. First, then, let us examine those good qualities by which we\nhold Likeness comes, and seek to establish what is this thing which,\nas we possess it, in transcription, is virtue but as the Supreme\npossesses it, is in the nature of an exemplar or archetype and is\nnot virtue.\n\nWe must first distinguish two modes of Likeness.\n\nThere is the likeness demanding an identical nature in\nthe objects\nwhich, further, must draw their likeness from a common principle:\nand there is the case in which B resembles A, but A is a Primal, not\nconcerned about B and not said to resemble B. In this second case,\nlikeness is understood in a distinct sense: we no longer look for\nidentity of nature, but, on the contrary, for divergence since the\nlikeness has come about by the mode of difference.\n\nWhat, then, precisely is Virtue, collectively and in the\nparticular? The clearer method will be to begin with the particular,\nfor so the common element by which all the forms hold the\ngeneral name\nwill readily appear.\n\nThe Civic Virtues, on which we have touched above, are a\nprinciple\nor order and beauty in us as long as we remain passing our life\nhere: they ennoble us by setting bound and measure to our desires\nand to our entire sensibility, and dispelling false judgement- and\nthis by sheer efficacy of the better, by the very setting of the\nbounds, by the fact that the measured is lifted outside of the\nsphere of the unmeasured and lawless.\n\nAnd, further, these Civic Virtues- measured and ordered\nthemselves\nand acting as a principle of measure to the Soul which is as\nMatter to\ntheir forming- are like to the measure reigning in the\nover-world, and\nthey carry a trace of that Highest Good in the Supreme; for, while\nutter measurelessness is brute Matter and wholly outside of\nLikeness, any participation in Ideal-Form produces some\ncorresponding degree of Likeness to the formless Being There. And\nparticipation goes by nearness: the Soul nearer than the body,\ntherefore closer akin, participates more fully and shows a godlike\npresence, almost cheating us into the delusion that in the\nSoul we see\nGod entire.\n\nThis is the way in which men of the Civic Virtues attain\nLikeness.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. We come now to that other mode of Likeness which, we read, is\nthe fruit of the loftier virtues: discussing this we shall penetrate\nmore deeply into the essence of the Civic Virtue and be able\nto define\nthe nature of the higher kind whose existence we shall establish\nbeyond doubt.\n\nTo Plato, unmistakably, there are two distinct orders of virtue,\nand the civic does not suffice for Likeness: \"Likeness to God,\" he\nsays, \"is a flight from this world's ways and things\": in\ndealing with\nthe qualities of good citizenship he does not use the simple term\nVirtue but adds the distinguishing word civic: and elsewhere he\ndeclares all the virtues without exception to be purifications.\n\nBut in what sense can we call the virtues purifications, and how\ndoes purification issue in Likeness?\n\nAs the Soul is evil by being interfused with the body, and by\ncoming to share the body's states and to think the body's\nthoughts, so\nit would be good, it would be possessed of virtue, if it\nthrew off the\nbody's moods and devoted itself to its own Act- the state of\nIntellection and Wisdom- never allowed the passions of the body to\naffect it- the virtue of Sophrosyne- knew no fear at the parting\nfrom the body- the virtue of Fortitude- and if reason and the\nIntellectual-Principle ruled- in which state is Righteousness. Such\na disposition in the Soul, become thus intellective and immune to\npassion, it would not be wrong to call Likeness to God; for the\nDivine, too, is pure and the Divine-Act is such that\nLikeness to it is\nWisdom.\n\nBut would not this make virtue a state of the Divine also?\n\nNo: the Divine has no states; the state is in the Soul.\nThe Act of\nIntellection in the Soul is not the same as in the Divine: of things\nin the Supreme, Soul grasps some after a mode of its own, some not\nat all.\n\nThen yet again, the one word Intellection covers two distinct\nActs?\n\nRather there is primal Intellection and there is Intellection\nderiving from the Primal and of other scope.\n\nAs speech is the echo of the thought in the Soul, so thought in\nthe Soul is an echo from elsewhere: that is to say, as the uttered\nthought is an image of the soul-thought, so the soul-thought images\na thought above itself and is the interpreter of the higher sphere.\n\nVirtue, in the same way, is a thing of the Soul: it does not\nbelong to the Intellectual-Principle or to the Transcendence.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. We come, so, to the question whether Purification is the\nwhole of this human quality, virtue, or merely the forerunner upon\nwhich virtue follows? Does virtue imply the achieved state of\npurification or does the mere process suffice to it, Virtue being\nsomething of less perfection than the accomplished pureness which is\nalmost the Term?\n\nTo have been purified is to have cleansed away everything alien:\nbut Goodness is something more.\n\nIf before the impurity entered there was Goodness, the Goodness\nsuffices; but even so, not the act of cleansing but the\ncleansed thing\nthat emerges will be The Good. And it remains to establish what this\nemergent is.\n\nIt can scarcely prove to be The Good: The Absolute Good cannot\nbe thought to have taken up its abode with Evil. We can think of it\nonly as something of the nature of good but paying a double\nallegiance\nand unable to rest in the Authentic Good.\n\nThe Soul's true Good is in devotion to the\nIntellectual-Principle,\nits kin; evil to the Soul lies in frequenting strangers. There is no\nother way for it than to purify itself and so enter into\nrelation with\nits own; the new phase begins by a new orientation.\n\nAfter the Purification, then, there is still this orientation to\nbe made? No: by the purification the true alignment stands\naccomplished.\n\nThe Soul's virtue, then, is this alignment? No: it is what the\nalignment brings about within.\n\nAnd this is...?\n\nThat it sees; that, like sight affected by the thing seen, the\nsoul admits the imprint, graven upon it and working within it, of\nthe vision it has come to.\n\nBut was not the Soul possessed of all this always, or had it\nforgotten?\n\nWhat it now sees, it certainly always possessed, but as\nlying away\nin the dark, not as acting within it: to dispel the\ndarkness, and thus\ncome to knowledge of its inner content, it must thrust towards the\nlight.\n\nBesides, it possessed not the originals but images, pictures;\nand these it must bring into closer accord with the verities they\nrepresent. And, further, if the Intellectual-Principle is\nsaid to be a\npossession of the Soul, this is only in the sense that It is\nnot alien\nand that the link becomes very close when the Soul's sight is turned\ntowards It: otherwise, ever-present though It be, It remains\nforeign, just as our knowledge, if it does not determine action, is\ndead to us.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. So we come to the scope of the purification: that understood,\nthe nature of Likeness becomes clear. Likeness to what Principle?\nIdentity with what God?\n\nThe question is substantially this: how far does purification\ndispel the two orders of passion- anger, desire and the like, with\ngrief and its kin- and in what degree the disengagement from the\nbody is possible.\n\nDisengagement means simply that the soul withdraws to its own\nplace.\n\nIt will hold itself above all passions and affections. Necessary\npleasures and all the activity of the senses it will employ only for\nmedicament and assuagement lest its work be impeded. Pain it may\ncombat, but, failing the cure, it will bear meekly and ease it by\nrefusing assent to it. All passionate action it will check: the\nsuppression will be complete if that be possible, but at worst the\nSoul will never itself take fire but will keep the involuntary and\nuncontrolled outside its precincts and rare and weak at\nthat. The Soul\nhas nothing to dread, though no doubt the involuntary has some power\nhere too: fear therefore must cease, except so far as it is purely\nmonitory. What desire there may be can never be for the\nvile; even the\nfood and drink necessary for restoration will lie outside of the\nSoul's attention, and not less the sexual appetite: or if such\ndesire there must be, it will turn upon the actual needs of\nthe nature\nand be entirely under control; or if any uncontrolled motion takes\nplace, it will reach no further than the imagination, be no more\nthan a fleeting fancy.\n\nThe Soul itself will be inviolately free and will be working to\nset the irrational part of the nature above all attack, or\nif that may\nnot be, then at least to preserve it from violent assault,\nso that any\nwound it takes may be slight and be healed at once by virtue of the\nSoul's presence, just as a man living next door to a Sage\nwould profit\nby the neighbourhood, either in becoming wise and good\nhimself or, for\nsheer shame, never venturing any act which the nobler mind would\ndisapprove.\n\nThere will be no battling in the Soul: the mere intervention of\nReason is enough: the lower nature will stand in such awe of Reason\nthat for any slightest movement it has made it will grieve, and\ncensure its own weakness, in not having kept low and still in the\npresence of its lord.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. In all this there is no sin- there is only matter of\ndiscipline- but our concern is not merely to be sinless but\nto be God.\n\nAs long as there is any such involuntary action, the nature is\ntwofold, God and Demi-God, or rather God in association with a\nnature of a lower power: when all the involuntary is\nsuppressed, there\nis God unmingled, a Divine Being of those that follow upon The First.\n\nFor, at this height, the man is the very being that came from\nthe Supreme. The primal excellence restored, the essential man is\nThere: entering this sphere, he has associated himself with the\nreasoning phase of his nature and this he will lead up into likeness\nwith his highest self, as far as earthly mind is capable, so that if\npossible it shall never be inclined to, and at the least never\nadopt, any course displeasing to its overlord.\n\nWhat form, then, does virtue take in one so lofty?\n\nIt appears as Wisdom, which consists in the contemplation of all\nthat exists in the Intellectual-Principle, and as the immediate\npresence of the Intellectual-Principle itself.\n\nAnd each of these has two modes or aspects: there is Wisdom as\nit is in the Intellectual-Principle and as in the Soul; and there is\nthe Intellectual-Principle as it is present to itself and as it is\npresent to the Soul: this gives what in the Soul is Virtue, in the\nSupreme not Virtue.\n\nIn the Supreme, then, what is it?\n\nIts proper Act and Its Essence.\n\nThat Act and Essence of the Supreme, manifested in a new form,\nconstitute the virtue of this sphere. For the Supreme is not\nself-existent justice, or the Absolute of any defined virtue: it is,\nso to speak, an exemplar, the source of what in the soul becomes\nvirtue: for virtue is dependent, seated in something not itself; the\nSupreme is self-standing, independent.\n\nBut taking Rectitude to be the due ordering of faculty, does it\nnot always imply the existence of diverse parts?\n\nNo: There is a Rectitude of Diversity appropriate to what has\nparts, but there is another, not less Rectitude than the\nformer though\nit resides in a Unity. And the authentic Absolute-Rectitude\nis the Act\nof a Unity upon itself, of a Unity in which there is no this and\nthat and the other.\n\nOn this principle, the supreme Rectitude of the Soul is that it\ndirect its Act towards the Intellectual-Principle: its Restraint\n(Sophrosyne) is its inward bending towards the\nIntellectual-Principle;\nits Fortitude is its being impassive in the likeness of That towards\nwhich its gaze is set, Whose nature comports an impassivity which\nthe Soul acquires by virtue and must acquire if it is not to\nbe at the\nmercy of every state arising in its less noble companion.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. The virtues in the Soul run in a sequence\ncorrespondent to that\nexisting in the over-world, that is among their exemplars in the\nIntellectual-Principle.\n\nIn the Supreme, Intellection constitutes Knowledge and Wisdom;\nself-concentration is Sophrosyne; Its proper Act is Its Dutifulness;\nIts Immateriality, by which It remains inviolate within Itself is\nthe equivalent of Fortitude.\n\nIn the Soul, the direction of vision towards the\nIntellectual-Principle is Wisdom and Prudence, soul-virtues not\nappropriate to the Supreme where Thinker and Thought are identical.\nAll the other virtues have similar correspondences.\n\nAnd if the term of purification is the production of a\npure being,\nthen the purification of the Soul must produce all the\nvirtues; if any\nare lacking, then not one of them is perfect.\n\nAnd to possess the greater is potentially to possess the minor,\nthough the minor need not carry the greater with them.\n\nThus we have indicated the dominant note in the life of the\nSage; but whether his possession of the minor virtues be actual as\nwell as potential, whether even the greater are in Act in\nhim or yield\nto qualities higher still, must be decided afresh in each several\ncase.\n\nTake, for example, Contemplative-Wisdom. If other guides of\nconduct must be called in to meet a given need, can this virtue hold\nits ground even in mere potentiality?\n\nAnd what happens when the virtues in their very nature differ in\nscope and province? Where, for example, Sophrosyne would\nallow certain\nacts or emotions under due restraint and another virtue\nwould cut them\noff altogether? And is it not clear that all may have to yield, once\nContemplative-Wisdom comes into action?\n\nThe solution is in understanding the virtues and what each has\nto give: thus the man will learn to work with this or that as every\nseveral need demands. And as he reaches to loftier principles and\nother standards these in turn will define his conduct: for example,\nRestraint in its earlier form will no longer satisfy him; he\nwill work\nfor the final Disengagement; he will live, no longer, the human life\nof the good man- such as Civic Virtue commends- but, leaving this\nbeneath him, will take up instead another life, that of the Gods.\n\nFor it is to the Gods, not to the Good, that our Likeness must\nlook: to model ourselves upon good men is to produce an image of an\nimage: we have to fix our gaze above the image and attain Likeness\nto the Supreme Exemplar.",
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