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    "endpoint": "/api/sources/plotinus-enneads/ennead-3/9-detached-considerations.json"
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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 9,
    "slug": "9-detached-considerations",
    "title": "III.9 — Detached Considerations",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1814,
    "text": "## NINTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### NINTH TRACTATE.\n\nDETACHED CONSIDERATIONS.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. \"The Intellectual-Principle\" [= the Divine Mind]- we read [in\nthe Timaeus]- \"looks upon the Ideas indwelling in that Being which\nis the Essentially Living [= according to Plotinus, the Intellectual\nRealm], \"and then\"- the text proceeds- \"the Creator judged that all\nthe content of that essentially living Being must find place in this\nlower universe also.\"\n\nAre we meant to gather that the Ideas came into being before the\nIntellectual-Principle so that it \"sees them\" as previously existent?\n\nThe first step is to make sure whether the \"Living Being\" of the\ntext is to be distinguished from the Intellectual-Principle\nas another\nthing than it.\n\nIt might be argued that the Intellectual-Principle is the\nContemplator and therefore that the Living-Being contemplated is not\nthe Intellectual-Principle but must be described as the Intellectual\nObject so that the Intellectual-Principle must possess the\nIdeal realm\nas something outside of itself.\n\nBut this would mean that it possesses images and not the\nrealities, since the realities are in the Intellectual Realm which\nit contemplates: Reality- we read- is in the Authentic Existent\nwhich contains the essential form of particular things.\n\nNo: even though the Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual\nObject are distinct, they are not apart except for just that\ndistinction.\n\nNothing in the statement cited is inconsistent with the\nconception\nthat these two constitute one substance- though, in a unity,\nadmitting\nthat distinction, of the intellectual act [as against passivity],\nwithout which there can be no question of an Intellectual-Principle\nand an Intellectual Object: what is meant is not that the\ncontemplatory Being possesses its vision as in some other principle,\nbut that it contains the Intellectual Realm within itself.\n\nThe Intelligible Object is the Intellectual-Principle itself in\nits repose, unity, immobility: the Intellectual-Principle,\ncontemplator of that object- of the Intellectual-Principle thus in\nrepose is an active manifestation of the same Being, an Act which\ncontemplates its unmoved phase and, as thus contemplating, stands as\nIntellectual-Principle to that of which it has the\nintellection: it is\nIntellectual-Principle in virtue of having that intellection, and at\nthe same time is Intellectual Object, by assimilation.\n\nThis, then, is the Being which planned to create in the lower\nUniverse what it saw existing in the Supreme, the four orders of\nliving beings.\n\nNo doubt the passage: [of the Timaeus] seems to imply\ntacitly that\nthis planning Principle is distinct from the other two: but\nthe three-\nthe Essentially-Living, the Intellectual-Principle and this planning\nPrinciple will, to others, be manifestly one: the truth is that, by\na common accident, a particular trend of thought has occasioned the\ndiscrimination.\n\nWe have dealt with the first two; but the third- this Principle\nwhich decides to work upon the objects [the Ideas]\ncontemplated by the\nIntellectual-Principle within the Essentially-Living, to create\nthem, to establish them in their partial existence- what is this\nthird?\n\nIt is possible that in one aspect the Intellectual-Principle is\nthe principle of partial existence, while in another aspect\nit is not.\n\nThe entities thus particularized from the unity are products of\nthe Intellectual-Principle which thus would be, to that extent, the\nseparating agent. On the other hand it remains in itself,\nindivisible;\ndivision begins with its offspring which, of course, means\nwith Souls:\nand thus a Soul- with its particular Souls- may be the separative\nprinciple.\n\nThis is what is conveyed where we are told that the separation\nis the work of the third Principle and begins within the\nThird: for to\nthis Third belongs the discursive reasoning which is no function of\nthe Intellectual-Principle but characteristic of its secondary, of\nSoul, to which precisely, divided by its own Kind, belongs the Act\nof division.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2.... For in any one science the reduction of the total of\nknowledge into its separate propositions does not shatter its unity,\nchipping it into unrelated fragments; in each distinct item is\ntalent the entire body of the science, an integral thing in its\nhighest Principle and its last detail: and similarly a man must so\ndiscipline himself that the first Principles of his Being\nare also his\ncompletions, are totals, that all be pointed towards the loftiest\nphase of the Nature: when a man has become this unity in the best,\nhe is in that other realm; for it is by this highest within himself,\nmade his own, that he holds to the Supreme.\n\nAt no point did the All-Soul come into Being: it never arrived,\nfor it never knew place; what happens is that body, neighbouring\nwith it, participates in it: hence Plato does not place Soul in body\nbut body in Soul. The others, the secondary Souls, have a point of\ndeparture- they come from the All-Soul- and they have a Place into\nwhich to descend and in which to change to and fro, a place,\ntherefore, from which to ascend: but this All-Soul is for ever\nAbove, resting in that Being in which it holds its existence as Soul\nand followed, as next, by the Universe or, at least, by all beneath\nthe sun.\n\nThe partial Soul is illuminated by moving towards the Soul above\nit; for on that path it meets Authentic Existence. Movement towards\nthe lower is towards non-Being: and this is the step it takes when\nit is set on self; for by willing towards itself it produces its\nlower, an image of itself- a non-Being- and so is wandering, as it\nwere, into the void, stripping itself of its own determined form.\nAnd this image, this undetermined thing, is blank darkness, for it\nis utterly without reason, untouched by the Intellectual-Principle,\nfar removed from Authentic Being.\n\nAs long as it remains at the mid-stage it is in its own peculiar\nregion; but when, by a sort of inferior orientation, it looks\ndownward, it shapes that lower image and flings itself joyfully\nthither.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. (A)... How, then, does Unity give rise to Multiplicity?\n\nBy its omnipresence: there is nowhere where it is not; it\noccupies, therefore, all that is; at once, it is manifold-\nor, rather,\nit is all things.\n\nIf it were simply and solely everywhere, all would be this one\nthing alone: but it is, also, in no place, and this gives, in the\nfinal result, that, while all exists by means of it, in virtue of\nits omnipresence, all is distinct from it in virtue of its being\nnowhere.\n\nBut why is it not merely present everywhere but in addition\nnowhere-present?\n\nBecause, universality demands a previous unity. It must,\ntherefore, pervade all things and make all, but not be the universe\nwhich it makes.\n\n(B) The Soul itself must exist as Seeing- with the\nIntellectual-Principle as the object of its vision- it is\nundetermined\nbefore it sees but is naturally apt to see: in other words, Soul is\nMatter to [its determinant] the Intellectual-Principle.\n\n(C) When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are,\nobviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we would\nnot be able to have that intellection.\n\nWe know, and it is ourselves that we know; therefore we know the\nreality of a knowing nature: therefore, before that intellection in\nAct, there is another intellection, one at rest, so to speak.\n\nSimilarly, that self-intellection is an act upon a reality and\nupon a life; therefore, before the Life and Real-Being concerned in\nthe intellection, there must be another Being and Life. In a word,\nintellection is vested in the activities themselves: since, then,\nthe activities of self-intellection are intellective-forms, We, the\nAuthentic We, are the Intelligibles and self-intellection conveys\nthe Image of the Intellectual Sphere.\n\n(D) The Primal is a potentiality of Movement and of\nRepose- and so\nis above and beyond both- its next subsequent has rest and movement\nabout the Primal. Now this subsequent is the Intellectual-Principle-\nso characterized by having intellection of something not identical\nwith itself whereas the Primal is without intellection. A knowing\nprinciple has duality [that entailed by being the knower of\nsomething)\nand, moreover, it knows itself as deficient since its virtue\nconsists in this knowing and not in its own bare Being.\n\n(E) In the case of everything which has developed from\npossibility\nto actuality the actual is that which remains self-identical for its\nentire duration- and this it is which makes perfection possible even\nin things of the corporeal order, as for instance in fire but the\nactual of this kind cannot be everlasting since [by the fact of\ntheir having once existed only in potentiality] Matter has its place\nin them. In anything, on the contrary, not composite [= never\ntouched by Matter or potentiality] and possessing actuality, that\nactual existence is eternal... There is, however, the case, also in\nwhich a thing, itself existing in actuality, stands as\npotentiality to\nsome other form of Being.\n\n(F)... But the First is not to be envisaged as made up from Gods\nof a transcendent order: no; the Authentic Existents constitute the\nIntellectual-Principle with Which motion and rest begin. The Primal\ntouches nothing, but is the centre round which those other Beings\nlie in repose and in movement. For Movement is aiming, and the\nPrimal aims at nothing; what could the Summit aspire to?\n\nHas It, even, no Intellection of Itself?\n\nIt possesses Itself and therefore is said in general\nterms to know\nitself... But intellection does not mean self-ownership; it means\nturning the gaze towards the Primal: now the act of intellection is\nitself the Primal Act, and there is therefore no place for\nany earlier\none. The Being projecting this Act transcends the Act so that\nIntellection is secondary to the Being in which it resides.\nIntellection is not the transcendently venerable thing- neither\nIntellection in general nor even the Intellection of The Good. Apart\nfrom and over any Intellection stands The Good itself.\n\nThe Good therefore needs no consciousness.\n\nWhat sort of consciousness can be conceived in it?\n\nConsciousness of the Good as existent or non-existent?\n\nIf of existent Good, that Good exists before and without any\nsuch consciousness: if the act of consciousness produces that Good,\nthen The Good was not previously in existence- and, at once, the\nvery consciousness falls to the ground since it is, no longer\nconsciousness of The Good.\n\nBut would not all this mean that the First does not even live?\n\nThe First cannot be said to live since it is the source of Life.\n\nAll that has self-consciousness and self-intellection is\nderivative; it observes itself in order, by that activity, to become\nmaster of its Being: and if it study itself this can mean only that\nignorance inheres in it and that it is of its own nature lacking and\nto be made perfect by Intellection.\n\nAll thinking and knowing must, here, be eliminated: the addition\nintroduces deprivation and deficiency.",
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}