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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
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  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 7,
    "slug": "7-on-the-primal-good-and-secondary-forms-of-good",
    "title": "I.7 — On the Primal Good and Secondary Forms of Good",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 928,
    "text": "## SEVENTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SEVENTH TRACTATE.\n\nON THE PRIMAL GOOD AND SECONDARY FORMS OF GOOD\n\n[OTHERWISE, \"ON HAPPINESS\"].\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. We can scarcely conceive that for any entity the Good can be\nother than the natural Act expressing its life-force, or in the case\nof an entity made up of parts the Act, appropriate, natural and\ncomplete, expressive of that in it which is best.\n\nFor the Soul, then, the Good is its own natural Act.\n\nBut the Soul itself is natively a \"Best\"; if, further, its act\nbe directed towards the Best, the achievement is not merely the\n\"Soul's good\" but \"The Good\" without qualification.\n\nNow, given an Existent which- as being itself the best of\nexistences and even transcending the existences- directs its Act\ntowards no other, but is the object to which the Act of all else is\ndirected, it is clear that this must be at once the Good and\nthe means\nthrough which all else may participate in Good.\n\nThis Absolute Good other entities may possess in two ways- by\nbecoming like to It and by directing the Act of their being towards\nIt.\n\nNow, if all aspiration and Act whatsoever are directed\ntowards the\nGood, it follows that the Essential-Good neither need nor can look\noutside itself or aspire to anything other than itself: it can but\nremain unmoved, as being, in the constitution of things, the\nwellspring and firstcause of all Act: whatsoever in other entities\nis of the nature of Good cannot be due to any Act of the\nEssential-Good upon them; it is for them on the contrary to act\ntowards their source and cause. The Good must, then, be the Good not\nby any Act, not even by virtue of its Intellection, but by its very\nrest within Itself.\n\nExisting beyond and above Being, it must be beyond and above the\nIntellectual-Principle and all Intellection.\n\nFor, again, that only can be named the Good to which all is\nbound and itself to none: for only thus is it veritably the object\nof all aspiration. It must be unmoved, while all circles\naround it, as\na circumference around a centre from which all the radii proceed.\nAnother example would be the sun, central to the light which streams\nfrom it and is yet linked to it, or at least is always about it,\nirremoveably; try all you will to separate the light from the sun,\nor the sun from its light, for ever the light is in the sun.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. But the Universe outside; how is it aligned towards the Good?\n\nThe soulless by direction toward Soul: Soul towards the Good\nitself, through the Intellectual-Principle.\n\nEverything has something of the Good, by virtue of possessing a\ncertain degree of unity and a certain degree of Existence and by\nparticipation in Ideal-Form: to the extent of the Unity, Being, and\nForm which are present, there is a sharing in an image, for the\nUnity and Existence in which there is participation are no more than\nimages of the Ideal-Form.\n\nWith Soul it is different; the First-Soul, that which\nfollows upon\nthe Intellectual-Principle, possesses a life nearer to the Verity\nand through that Principle is of the nature of good; it will\nactually possess the Good if it orientate itself towards the\nIntellectual-Principle, since this follows immediately upon the Good.\n\nIn sum, then, life is the Good to the living, and the\nIntellectual-Principle to what is intellective; so that\nwhere there is\nlife with intellection there is a double contact with the Good.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. But if life is a good, is there good for all that lives?\n\nNo: in the vile, life limps: it is like the eye to the\ndim-sighted; it fails of its task.\n\nBut if the mingled strand of life is to us, though entwined with\nevil, still in the total a good, must not death be an evil?\n\nEvil to What? There must be a subject for the evil: but if the\npossible subject is no longer among beings, or, still among\nbeings, is\ndevoid of life... why, a stone is not more immune.\n\nIf, on the contrary, after death life and soul continue, then\ndeath will be no evil but a good; Soul, disembodied, is the freer to\nply its own Act.\n\nIf it be taken into the All-Soul- what evil can reach it There?\nAnd as the Gods are possessed of Good and untouched by evil- so,\ncertainly is the Soul that has preserved its essential character.\nAnd if it should lose its purity, the evil it experiences is not in\nits death but in its life. Suppose it to be under punishment in the\nlower world, even there the evil thing is its life and not its\ndeath; the misfortune is still life, a life of a definite character.\n\nLife is a partnership of a Soul and body; death is the\ndissolution; in either life or death, then, the Soul will feel\nitself at home.\n\nBut, again, if life is good, how can death be anything but evil?\n\nRemember that the good of life, where it has any good at all, is\nnot due to anything in the partnership but to the repelling\nof evil by\nvirtue; death, then, must be the greater good.\n\nIn a word, life in the body is of itself an evil but the Soul\nenters its Good through Virtue, not living the life of the\nCouplement but holding itself apart, even here.",
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