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    "slug": "ennead-2",
    "name": "Ennead II — The Physical Cosmos"
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    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 2,
    "slug": "2-the-heavenly-circuit",
    "title": "II.2 — The Heavenly Circuit",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1759,
    "text": "## SECOND TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SECOND TRACTATE.\n\nTHE HEAVENLY CIRCUIT.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. But whence that circular movement?\n\nIn imitation of the Intellectual-Principle.\n\nAnd does this movement belong to the material part or to\nthe Soul?\nCan we account for it on the ground that the Soul has itself at once\nfor centre and for the goal to which it must be ceaselessly\nmoving; or\nthat, being self-centred it is not of unlimited extension [and\nconsequently must move ceaselessly to be omnipresent], and that its\nrevolution carries the material mass with it?\n\nIf the Soul had been the moving power [by any such semi-physical\naction] it would be so no longer; it would have accomplished the act\nof moving and have brought the universe to rest; there would\nbe an end\nof this endless revolution.\n\nIn fact the Soul must be in repose or at least cannot\nhave spatial\nmovement; how then, having itself a movement of quite another order,\ncould it communicate spatial movement?\n\nBut perhaps the circular movement [of the Kosmos as soul\nand body]\nis not spatial or is spatial not primarily but only incidentally.\n\nWhat, by this explanation, would be the essential movement of\nthe kosmic soul?\n\nA movement towards itself, the movement of self-awareness, of\nself-intellection, of the living of its life, the movement of its\nreaching to all things so that nothing shall lie outside of it,\nnothing anywhere but within its scope.\n\nThe dominant in a living thing is what compasses it entirely and\nmakes it a unity.\n\nIf the Soul has no motion of any kind, it would not vitally\ncompass the Kosmos nor would the Kosmos, a thing of body, keep its\ncontent alive, for the life of body is movement.\n\nAny spatial motion there is will be limited; it will be not that\nof Soul untrammelled but that of a material frame ensouled, an\nanimated organism; the movement will be partly of body, partly of\nSoul, the body tending to the straight line which its nature\nimposes, the Soul restraining it; the resultant will be the\ncompromise\nmovement of a thing at once carried forward and at rest.\n\nBut supposing that the circular movement is to be attributed to\nthe body, how is it to be explained, since all body, including fire\n[which constitutes the heavens] has straightforward motion?\n\nThe answer is that forthright movement is maintained only\npending arrival at the place for which the moving thing is destined:\nwhere a thing is ordained to be, there it seeks, of its nature, to\ncome for its rest; its motion is its tendence to its appointed place.\n\nThen, since the fire of the sidereal system has attained\nits goal,\nwhy does it not stay at rest?\n\nEvidently because the very nature of fire is to be mobile: if it\ndid not take the curve, its straight line would finally fling it\noutside the universe: the circular course, then, is imperative.\n\nBut this would imply an act of providence?\n\nNot quite: rather its own act under providence; attaining to\nthat realm, it must still take the circular course by its indwelling\nnature; for it seeks the straight path onwards but finds no further\nspace and is driven back so that it recoils on the only\ncourse left to\nit: there is nothing beyond; it has reached the ultimate; it runs\nits course in the regions it occupies, itself its own sphere, not\ndestined to come to rest there, existing to move.\n\nFurther, the centre of a circle [and therefore of the Kosmos] is\ndistinctively a point of rest: if the circumference outside were not\nin motion, the universe would be no more than one vast centre. And\nmovement around the centre is all the more to be expected in the\ncase of a living thing whose nature binds it within a body. Such\nmotion alone can constitute its impulse towards its centre: it\ncannot coincide with the centre, for then there would be no circle;\nsince this may not be, it whirls about it; so only can it indulge\nits tendence.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the Kosmic circuit is due to the Soul, we\nare not to think of a painful driving [wearing it down at last]; the\nsoul does not use violence or in any way thwart nature, for \"Nature\"\nis no other than the custom the All-Soul has established.\nOmnipresent in its entirety, incapable of division, the Soul of the\nuniverse communicates that quality of universal presence to the\nheavens, too, in their degree, the degree, that is, of pursuing\nuniversality and advancing towards it.\n\nIf the Soul halted anywhere, there the Kosmos, too, brought so\nfar, would halt: but the Soul encompasses all, and so the Kosmos\nmoves, seeking everything.\n\nYet never to attain?\n\nOn the contrary this very motion is its eternal attainment.\n\nOr, better; the Soul is ceaselessly leading the Kosmos towards\nitself: the continuous attraction communicates a continuous\nmovement- not to some outside space but towards the Soul and in the\none sphere with it, not in the straight line [which would ultimately\nbring the moving body outside and below the Soul], but in the\ncurving course in which the moving body at every stage possesses the\nSoul that is attracting it and bestowing itself upon it.\n\nIf the soul were stationary, that is if [instead of\npresiding over\na Kosmos] it dwelt wholly and solely in the realm in which every\nmember is at rest, motion would be unknown; but, since the\nSoul is not\nfixed in some one station There, the Kosmos must travel to\nevery point\nin quest of it, and never outside it: in a circle, therefore.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. And what of lower things? [Why have they not this motion?]\n\n[Their case is very different]: the single thing here is not an\nall but a part and limited to a given segment of space; that other\nrealm is all, is space, so to speak, and is subject to no\nhindrance or\ncontrol, for in itself it is all that is.\n\nAnd men?\n\nAs a self, each is a personal whole, no doubt; but as member of\nthe universe, each is a partial thing.\n\nBut if, wherever the circling body be, it possesses the\nSoul, what\nneed of the circling?\n\nBecause everywhere it finds something else besides the\nSoul [which\nit desires to possess alone].\n\nThe circular movement would be explained, too, if the\nSoul's power\nmay be taken as resident at its centre.\n\nHere, however, we must distinguish between a centre in reference\nto the two different natures, body and Soul.\n\nIn body, centre is a point of place; in Soul it is a source, the\nsource of some other nature. The word, which without qualification\nwould mean the midpoint of a spheric mass, may serve in the double\nreference; and, as in a material mass so in the Soul, there must be\na centre, that around which the object, Soul or material mass,\nrevolves.\n\nThe Soul exists in revolution around God to whom it clings in\nlove, holding itself to the utmost of its power near to Him as the\nBeing on which all depends; and since it cannot coincide with God it\ncircles about Him.\n\nWhy then do not all souls [i.e., the lower, also, as those of\nmen and animals] thus circle about the Godhead?\n\nEvery Soul does in its own rank and place.\n\nAnd why not our very bodies, also?\n\nBecause the forward path is characteristic of body and\nbecause all\nthe body's impulses are to other ends and because what in us is of\nthis circling nature is hampered in its motion by the clay it bears\nwith it, while in the higher realm everything flows on its course,\nlightly and easily, with nothing to check it, once there is any\nprinciple of motion in it at all.\n\nAnd it may very well be that even in us the Spirit which dwells\nwith the Soul does thus circle about the divinity. For since God is\nomnipresent the Soul desiring perfect union must take the circular\ncourse: God is not stationed.\n\nSimilarly Plato attributes to the stars not only the spheric\nmovement belonging to the universe as a whole but also to each a\nrevolution around their common centre; each- not by way of\nthought but\nby links of natural necessity- has in its own place taken hold of\nGod and exults.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. The truth may be resumed in this way:\n\nThere is a lowest power of the Soul, a nearest to earth, and\nthis is interwoven throughout the entire universe: another phase\npossesses sensation, while yet another includes the Reason which is\nconcerned with the objects of sensation: this higher phase holds\nitself to the spheres, poised towards the Above but hovering over\nthe lesser Soul and giving forth to it an effluence which makes it\nmore intensely vital.\n\nThe lower Soul is moved by the higher which, besides encircling\nand supporting it, actually resides in whatsoever part of it has\nthrust upwards and attained the spheres. The lower then, ringed\nround by the higher and answering its call, turns and tends towards\nit; and this upward tension communicates motion to the material\nframe in which it is involved: for if a single point in a\nspheric mass\nis in any degree moved, without being drawn away from the rest, it\nmoves the whole, and the sphere is set in motion. Something of the\nsame kind happens in the case of our bodies: the unspatial\nmovement of\nthe Soul- in happiness, for instance, or at the idea of some\npleasant event- sets up a spatial movement in the body: the Soul,\nattaining in its own region some good which increases its sense of\nlife, moves towards what pleases it; and so, by force of the union\nestablished in the order of nature, it moves the body, in the body's\nregion, that is in space.\n\nAs for that phase of the Soul in which sensation is vested, it,\ntoo, takes its good from the Supreme above itself and moves,\nrejoicingly, in quest of it: and since the object of its desire is\neverywhere, it too ranges always through the entire scope of the\nuniverse.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle has no such progress in any\nregion; its\nmovement is a stationary act, for it turns upon itself.\n\nAnd this is why the All, circling as it does, is at the same\ntime at rest.",
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