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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
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  "parents": [
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 6,
    "slug": "6-beauty",
    "title": "I.6 — On Beauty",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 4454,
    "text": "## SIXTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SIXTH TRACTATE.\n\nBEAUTY.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight; but there\nis a beauty\nfor the hearing too, as in certain combinations of words and in all\nkinds of music, for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds\nthat lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are\naware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in\nthe pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of\nthe virtues.\nWhat loftier beauty there may be, yet, our argument will bring to\nlight.\n\nWhat, then, is it that gives comeliness to material forms and\ndraws the ear to the sweetness perceived in sounds, and what is the\nsecret of the beauty there is in all that derives from Soul?\n\nIs there some One Principle from which all take their\ngrace, or is\nthere a beauty peculiar to the embodied and another for the\nbodiless? Finally, one or many, what would such a Principle be?\n\nConsider that some things, material shapes for instance, are\ngracious not by anything inherent but by something\ncommunicated, while\nothers are lovely of themselves, as, for example, Virtue.\n\nThe same bodies appear sometimes beautiful, sometimes\nnot; so that\nthere is a good deal between being body and being beautiful.\n\nWhat, then, is this something that shows itself in certain\nmaterial forms? This is the natural beginning of our enquiry.\n\nWhat is it that attracts the eyes of those to whom a beautiful\nobject is presented, and calls them, lures them, towards it,\nand fills\nthem with joy at the sight? If we possess ourselves of this, we have\nat once a standpoint for the wider survey.\n\nAlmost everyone declares that the symmetry of parts towards each\nother and towards a whole, with, besides, a certain charm of colour,\nconstitutes the beauty recognized by the eye, that in visible\nthings, as indeed in all else, universally, the beautiful thing is\nessentially symmetrical, patterned.\n\nBut think what this means.\n\nOnly a compound can be beautiful, never anything devoid of\nparts; and only a whole; the several parts will have beauty, not in\nthemselves, but only as working together to give a comely total. Yet\nbeauty in an aggregate demands beauty in details; it cannot be\nconstructed out of ugliness; its law must run throughout.\n\nAll the loveliness of colour and even the light of the sun,\nbeing devoid of parts and so not beautiful by symmetry, must be\nruled out of the realm of beauty. And how comes gold to be a\nbeautiful\nthing? And lightning by night, and the stars, why are these so fair?\n\nIn sounds also the simple must be proscribed, though often in a\nwhole noble composition each several tone is delicious in itself.\n\nAgain since the one face, constant in symmetry, appears\nsometimes fair and sometimes not, can we doubt that beauty is\nsomething more than symmetry, that symmetry itself owes its beauty\nto a remoter principle?\n\nTurn to what is attractive in methods of life or in the\nexpression\nof thought; are we to call in symmetry here? What symmetry is to be\nfound in noble conduct, or excellent laws, in any form of mental\npursuit?\n\nWhat symmetry can there be in points of abstract thought?\n\nThe symmetry of being accordant with each other? But there may\nbe accordance or entire identity where there is nothing but\nugliness: the proposition that honesty is merely a generous\nartlessness chimes in the most perfect harmony with the proposition\nthat morality means weakness of will; the accordance is complete.\n\nThen again, all the virtues are a beauty of the soul, a beauty\nauthentic beyond any of these others; but how does symmetry enter\nhere? The soul, it is true, is not a simple unity, but still its\nvirtue cannot have the symmetry of size or of number: what\nstandard of\nmeasurement could preside over the compromise or the coalescence of\nthe soul's faculties or purposes?\n\nFinally, how by this theory would there be beauty in the\nIntellectual-Principle, essentially the solitary?\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Let us, then, go back to the source, and indicate at once the\nPrinciple that bestows beauty on material things.\n\nUndoubtedly this Principle exists; it is something that is\nperceived at the first glance, something which the soul names as\nfrom an ancient knowledge and, recognising, welcomes it, enters into\nunison with it.\n\nBut let the soul fall in with the Ugly and at once it shrinks\nwithin itself, denies the thing, turns away from it, not accordant,\nresenting it.\n\nOur interpretation is that the soul- by the very truth of its\nnature, by its affiliation to the noblest Existents in the hierarchy\nof Being- when it sees anything of that kin, or any trace of that\nkinship, thrills with an immediate delight, takes its own to itself,\nand thus stirs anew to the sense of its nature and of all its\naffinity.\n\nBut, is there any such likeness between the loveliness of this\nworld and the splendours in the Supreme? Such a likeness in the\nparticulars would make the two orders alike: but what is there in\ncommon between beauty here and beauty There?\n\nWe hold that all the loveliness of this world comes by communion\nin Ideal-Form.\n\nAll shapelessness whose kind admits of pattern and form, as long\nas it remains outside of Reason and Idea, is ugly by that very\nisolation from the Divine-Thought. And this is the Absolute Ugly: an\nugly thing is something that has not been entirely mastered by\npattern, that is by Reason, the Matter not yielding at all points\nand in all respects to Ideal-Form.\n\nBut where the Ideal-Form has entered, it has grouped and\ncoordinated what from a diversity of parts was to become a unity: it\nhas rallied confusion into co-operation: it has made the sum one\nharmonious coherence: for the Idea is a unity and what it moulds\nmust come to unity as far as multiplicity may.\n\nAnd on what has thus been compacted to unity, Beauty enthrones\nitself, giving itself to the parts as to the sum: when it lights on\nsome natural unity, a thing of like parts, then it gives itself to\nthat whole. Thus, for an illustration, there is the beauty,\nconferred by craftsmanship, of all a house with all its\nparts, and the\nbeauty which some natural quality may give to a single stone.\n\nThis, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful- by\ncommunicating in the thought that flows from the Divine.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. And the soul includes a faculty peculiarly addressed\nto Beauty-\none incomparably sure in the appreciation of its own, never in doubt\nwhenever any lovely thing presents itself for judgement.\n\nOr perhaps the soul itself acts immediately, affirming the\nBeautiful where it finds something accordant with the Ideal-Form\nwithin itself, using this Idea as a canon of accuracy in its\ndecision.\n\nBut what accordance is there between the material and that which\nantedates all Matter?\n\nOn what principle does the architect, when he finds the house\nstanding before him correspondent with his inner ideal of a house,\npronounce it beautiful? Is it not that the house before him, the\nstones apart, is the inner idea stamped upon the mass of exterior\nmatter, the indivisible exhibited in diversity?\n\nSo with the perceptive faculty: discerning in certain objects\nthe Ideal-Form which has bound and controlled shapeless matter,\nopposed in nature to Idea, seeing further stamped upon the common\nshapes some shape excellent above the common, it gathers into unity\nwhat still remains fragmentary, catches it up and carries it within,\nno longer a thing of parts, and presents it to the Ideal-Principle\nas something concordant and congenial, a natural friend: the joy\nhere is like that of a good man who discerns in a youth the early\nsigns of a virtue consonant with the achieved perfection within his\nown soul.\n\nThe beauty of colour is also the outcome of a unification: it\nderives from shape, from the conquest of the darkness inherent in\nMatter by the pouring-in of light, the unembodied, which is a\nRational-Principle and an Ideal-Form.\n\nHence it is that Fire itself is splendid beyond all material\nbodies, holding the rank of Ideal-Principle to the other elements,\nmaking ever upwards, the subtlest and sprightliest of all bodies, as\nvery near to the unembodied; itself alone admitting no other, all\nthe others penetrated by it: for they take warmth but this is never\ncold; it has colour primally; they receive the Form of\ncolour from it:\nhence the splendour of its light, the splendour that belongs to the\nIdea. And all that has resisted and is but uncertainly held by its\nlight remains outside of beauty, as not having absorbed the\nplenitude of the Form of colour.\n\nAnd harmonies unheard in sound create the harmonies we hear, and\nwake the soul to the consciousness of beauty, showing it the one\nessence in another kind: for the measures of our sensible music are\nnot arbitrary but are determined by the Principle whose labour is to\ndominate Matter and bring pattern into being.\n\nThus far of the beauties of the realm of sense, images and\nshadow-pictures, fugitives that have entered into Matter- to adorn,\nand to ravish, where they are seen.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. But there are earlier and loftier beauties than these. In the\nsense-bound life we are no longer granted to know them, but the\nsoul, taking no help from the organs, sees and proclaims them. To\nthe vision of these we must mount, leaving sense to its own\nlow place.\n\nAs it is not for those to speak of the graceful forms of the\nmaterial world who have never seen them or known their\ngrace- men born\nblind, let us suppose- in the same way those must be silent upon the\nbeauty of noble conduct and of learning and all that order who have\nnever cared for such things, nor may those tell of the splendour of\nvirtue who have never known the face of Justice and of Moral-Wisdom\nbeautiful beyond the beauty of Evening and of dawn.\n\nSuch vision is for those only who see with the Soul's sight- and\nat the vision, they will rejoice, and awe will fall upon them and a\ntrouble deeper than all the rest could ever stir, for now they are\nmoving in the realm of Truth.\n\nThis is the spirit that Beauty must ever induce, wonderment and\na delicious trouble, longing and love and a trembling that is all\ndelight. For the unseen all this may be felt as for the\nseen; and this\nthe Souls feel for it, every soul in some degree, but those the more\ndeeply that are the more truly apt to this higher love- just as all\ntake delight in the beauty of the body but all are not stung as\nsharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are known as\nLovers.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. These Lovers, then, lovers of the beauty outside of\nsense, must\nbe made to declare themselves.\n\nWhat do you feel in presence of the grace you discern in\nactions, in manners, in sound morality, in all the works and\nfruits of\nvirtue, in the beauty of souls? When you see that you yourselves are\nbeautiful within, what do you feel? What is this Dionysiac\nexultation that thrills through your being, this straining upwards\nof all your Soul, this longing to break away from the body and live\nsunken within the veritable self?\n\nThese are no other than the emotions of Souls under the spell of\nlove.\n\nBut what is it that awakens all this passion? No shape,\nno colour,\nno grandeur of mass: all is for a Soul, something whose beauty rests\nupon no colour, for the moral wisdom the Soul enshrines and all the\nother hueless splendour of the virtues. It is that you find in\nyourself, or admire in another, loftiness of spirit; righteousness\nof life; disciplined purity; courage of the majestic face; gravity;\nmodesty that goes fearless and tranquil and passionless; and,\nshining down upon all, the light of god-like Intellection.\n\nAll these noble qualities are to be reverenced and loved, no\ndoubt, but what entitles them to be called beautiful?\n\nThey exist: they manifest themselves to us: anyone that sees\nthem must admit that they have reality of Being; and is not\nReal-Being, really beautiful?\n\nBut we have not yet shown by what property in them they have\nwrought the Soul to loveliness: what is this grace, this splendour\nas of Light, resting upon all the virtues?\n\nLet us take the contrary, the ugliness of the Soul, and set that\nagainst its beauty: to understand, at once, what this ugliness is\nand how it comes to appear in the Soul will certainly open our way\nbefore us.\n\nLet us then suppose an ugly Soul, dissolute, unrighteous:\nteeming with all the lusts; torn by internal discord; beset by the\nfears of its cowardice and the envies of its pettiness; thinking, in\nthe little thought it has, only of the perish able and the base;\nperverse in all its the friend of unclean pleasures; living the life\nof abandonment to bodily sensation and delighting in its deformity.\n\nWhat must we think but that all this shame is something that has\ngathered about the Soul, some foreign bane outraging it, soiling it,\nso that, encumbered with all manner of turpitude, it has no longer a\nclean activity or a clean sensation, but commands only a life\nsmouldering dully under the crust of evil; that, sunk in manifold\ndeath, it no longer sees what a Soul should see, may no\nlonger rest in\nits own being, dragged ever as it is towards the outer, the\nlower, the\ndark?\n\nAn unclean thing, I dare to say; flickering hither and thither\nat the call of objects of sense, deeply infected with the taint of\nbody, occupied always in Matter, and absorbing Matter into itself;\nin its commerce with the Ignoble it has trafficked away for an alien\nnature its own essential Idea.\n\nIf a man has been immersed in filth or daubed with mud his\nnative comeliness disappears and all that is seen is the foul stuff\nbesmearing him: his ugly condition is due to alien matter that has\nencrusted him, and if he is to win back his grace it must be his\nbusiness to scour and purify himself and make himself what he was.\n\nSo, we may justly say, a Soul becomes ugly- by something foisted\nupon it, by sinking itself into the alien, by a fall, a descent into\nbody, into Matter. The dishonour of the Soul is in its ceasing to be\nclean and apart. Gold is degraded when it is mixed with earthy\nparticles; if these be worked out, the gold is left and is\nbeautiful, isolated from all that is foreign, gold with gold alone.\nAnd so the Soul; let it be but cleared of the desires that\ncome by its\ntoo intimate converse with the body, emancipated from all the\npassions, purged of all that embodiment has thrust upon it,\nwithdrawn,\na solitary, to itself again- in that moment the ugliness that came\nonly from the alien is stripped away.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. For, as the ancient teaching was, moral-discipline and\ncourage and every virtue, not even excepting Wisdom itself, all is\npurification.\n\nHence the Mysteries with good reason adumbrate the immersion of\nthe unpurified in filth, even in the Nether-World, since the unclean\nloves filth for its very filthiness, and swine foul of body\nfind their\njoy in foulness.\n\nWhat else is Sophrosyne, rightly so-called, but to take\nno part in\nthe pleasures of the body, to break away from them as unclean and\nunworthy of the clean? So too, Courage is but being fearless of the\ndeath which is but the parting of the Soul from the body, an event\nwhich no one can dread whose delight is to be his unmingled self.\nAnd Magnanimity is but disregard for the lure of things here. And\nWisdom is but the Act of the Intellectual-Principle\nwithdrawn from the\nlower places and leading the Soul to the Above.\n\nThe Soul thus cleansed is all Idea and Reason, wholly free of\nbody, intellective, entirely of that divine order from which the\nwellspring of Beauty rises and all the race of Beauty.\n\nHence the Soul heightened to the Intellectual-Principle is\nbeautiful to all its power. For Intellection and all that proceeds\nfrom Intellection are the Soul's beauty, a graciousness native to it\nand not foreign, for only with these is it truly Soul. And it is\njust to say that in the Soul's becoming a good and beautiful thing\nis its becoming like to God, for from the Divine comes all the\nBeauty and all the Good in beings.\n\nWe may even say that Beauty is the Authentic-Existents and\nUgliness is the Principle contrary to Existence: and the Ugly is\nalso the primal evil; therefore its contrary is at once good and\nbeautiful, or is Good and Beauty: and hence the one method will\ndiscover to us the Beauty-Good and the Ugliness-Evil.\n\nAnd Beauty, this Beauty which is also The Good, must be posed as\nThe First: directly deriving from this First is the\nIntellectual-Principle which is pre-eminently the manifestation of\nBeauty; through the Intellectual-Principle Soul is beautiful. The\nbeauty in things of a lower order-actions and pursuits for instance-\ncomes by operation of the shaping Soul which is also the\nauthor of the\nbeauty found in the world of sense. For the Soul, a divine thing, a\nfragment as it were of the Primal Beauty, makes beautiful to the\nfulness of their capacity all things whatsoever that it grasps and\nmoulds.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the\ndesired of\nevery Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I\nsay that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as\na Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path,\nwho will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves\nof all that we have put on in our descent:- so, to those\nthat approach\nthe Holy Celebrations of the Mysteries, there are appointed\npurifications and the laying aside of the garments worn before, and\nthe entry in nakedness- until, passing, on the upward way,\nall that is\nother than the God, each in the solitude of himself shall behold\nthat solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the\nPure, that from Which all things depend, for Which all look and live\nand act and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and\nof Being.\n\nAnd one that shall know this vision- with what passion of love\nshall he not be seized, with what pang of desire, what longing to be\nmolten into one with This, what wondering delight! If he that has\nnever seen this Being must hunger for It as for all his welfare, he\nthat has known must love and reverence It as the very Beauty; he\nwill be flooded with awe and gladness, stricken by a salutary\nterror; he loves with a veritable love, with sharp desire; all other\nloves than this he must despise, and disdain all that once seemed\nfair.\n\nThis, indeed, is the mood even of those who, having witnessed\nthe manifestation of Gods or Supernals, can never again feel the old\ndelight in the comeliness of material forms: what then are\nwe to think\nof one that contemplates Absolute Beauty in Its essential integrity,\nno accumulation of flesh and matter, no dweller on earth or in the\nheavens- so perfect Its purity- far above all such things in\nthat they\nare non-essential, composite, not primal but descending from This?\n\nBeholding this Being- the Choragos of all Existence, the\nSelf-Intent that ever gives forth and never takes- resting, rapt, in\nthe vision and possession of so lofty a loveliness, growing to Its\nlikeness, what Beauty can the soul yet lack? For This, the Beauty\nsupreme, the absolute, and the primal, fashions Its lovers to Beauty\nand makes them also worthy of love.\n\nAnd for This, the sternest and the uttermost combat is set\nbefore the Souls; all our labour is for This, lest we be left\nwithout part in this noblest vision, which to attain is to be\nblessed in the blissful sight, which to fail of is to fail utterly.\n\nFor not he that has failed of the joy that is in colour or in\nvisible forms, not he that has failed of power or of honours or of\nkingdom has failed, but only he that has failed of only This, for\nWhose winning he should renounce kingdoms and command over earth and\nocean and sky, if only, spurning the world of sense from beneath his\nfeet, and straining to This, he may see.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of\nthe inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts,\napart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane?\n\nHe that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw\ninto himself,\nforegoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from\nthe material beauty that once made his joy. When he perceives those\nshapes of grace that show in body, let him not pursue: he must know\nthem for copies, vestiges, shadows, and hasten away towards That\nthey tell of. For if anyone follow what is like a beautiful shape\nplaying over water- is there not a myth telling in symbol of such a\ndupe, how he sank into the depths of the current and was\nswept away to\nnothingness? So too, one that is held by material beauty and will\nnot break free shall be precipitated, not in body but in\nSoul, down to\nthe dark depths loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even\nin the Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with\nshadows, there as\nhere.\n\n\"Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland\": this is\nthe soundest\ncounsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the\nopen sea? For\nOdysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands the flight from\nthe sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to linger for all the\npleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight of sense filling\nhis days.\n\nThe Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is\nThe Father.\n\nWhat then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is\nnot a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to\nland; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all\nthis order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must\nclose the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be\nwaked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which few turn\nto use.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. And this inner vision, what is its operation?\n\nNewly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate\nsplendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained- to the habit of\nremarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beauty\nproduced not by the labour of the arts but by the virtue of men\nknown for their goodness: lastly, you must search the souls of those\nthat have shaped these beautiful forms.\n\nBut how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its\nloveliness?\n\nWithdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself\nbeautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be\nmade beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this\nline lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has\ngrown upon his\nwork. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all\nthat is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make\nall one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until\nthere shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of\nvirtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely\nestablished in\nthe stainless shrine.\n\nWhen you know that you have become this perfect work,\nwhen you are\nself-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining\nthat can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to\nthe authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your\nessential nature, wholly that only veritable Light which is not\nmeasured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form nor again\ndiffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something\ngreater than all measure and more than all quantity- when\nyou perceive\nthat you have grown to this, you are now become very vision: now\ncall up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step- you need a\nguide no longer- strain, and see.\n\nThis is the only eye that sees the mighty Beauty. If the eye\nthat adventures the vision be dimmed by vice, impure, or weak, and\nunable in its cowardly blenching to see the uttermost\nbrightness, then\nit sees nothing even though another point to what lies plain to\nsight before it. To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to\nwhat is to be seen, and having some likeness to it. Never did eye\nsee the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never\ncan the soul\nhave vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.\n\nTherefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful who\ncares to see God and Beauty. So, mounting, the Soul will\ncome first to\nthe Intellectual-Principle and survey all the beautiful Ideas in the\nSupreme and will avow that this is Beauty, that the Ideas are\nBeauty. For by their efficacy comes all Beauty else, but the\noffspring\nand essence of the Intellectual-Being. What is beyond the\nIntellectual-Principle we affirm to be the nature of Good radiating\nBeauty before it. So that, treating the Intellectual-Kosmos as one,\nthe first is the Beautiful: if we make distinction there,\nthe Realm of\nIdeas constitutes the Beauty of the Intellectual Sphere; and\nThe Good,\nwhich lies beyond, is the Fountain at once and Principle of Beauty:\nthe Primal Good and the Primal Beauty have the one\ndwelling-place and,\nthus, always, Beauty's seat is There.",
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