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    "slug": "ennead-4",
    "name": "Ennead IV — On the Soul"
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      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 2,
    "slug": "2-on-the-essence-of-the-soul-2",
    "title": "IV.2 — On the Essence of the Soul (2)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1731,
    "text": "## SECOND TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SECOND TRACTATE.\n\nON THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL (2).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. In our attempt to elucidate the Essence of the soul,\nwe show it\nto be neither a material fabric nor, among immaterial things, a\nharmony. The theory that it is some final development, some\nentelechy, we pass by, holding this to be neither true as presented\nnor practically definitive.\n\nNo doubt we make a very positive statement about it when we\ndeclare it to belong to the Intellectual Kind, to be of the divine\norder; but a deeper penetration of its nature is demanded.\n\nIn that allocation we were distinguishing things as they fall\nunder the Intellectual or the sensible, and we placed the soul in\nthe former class; now, taking its membership of the Intellectual for\ngranted, we must investigate by another path the more specific\ncharacteristics of its nature.\n\nThere are, we hold, things primarily apt to partition, tending\nby sheer nature towards separate existence: they are things in which\nno part is identical either with another part or with the whole,\nwhile, also their part is necessarily less than the total and whole:\nthese are magnitudes of the realm of sense, masses, each of which\nhas a station of its own so that none can be identically present in\nentirety at more than one point at one time.\n\nBut to that order is opposed Essence [Real-Being]; this is in no\ndegree susceptible of partition; it is unparted and impartible;\ninterval is foreign to it, cannot enter into our idea of it:\nit has no\nneed of place and is not, in diffusion or as an entirety, situated\nwithin any other being: it is poised over all beings at\nonce, and this\nis not in the sense of using them as a base but in their\nbeing neither\ncapable nor desirous of existing independently of it; it is\nan essence\neternally unvaried: it is common to all that follows upon it: it is\nlike the circle's centre to which all the radii are attached while\nleaving it unbrokenly in possession of itself, the starting point of\ntheir course and of their essential being, the ground in which they\nall participate: thus the indivisible is the principle of these\ndivided existences and in their very outgoing they remain enduringly\nin contact with that stationary essence.\n\nSo far we have the primarily indivisible- supreme among the\nIntellectual and Authentically Existent- and we have its\ncontrary, the\nKind definitely divisible in things of sense; but there is also\nanother Kind, of earlier rank than the sensible yet near to it and\nresident within it- an order, not, like body, primarily a thing of\npart, but becoming so upon incorporation. The bodies are\nseparate, and\nthe ideal form which enters them is correspondingly sundered while,\nstill, it is present as one whole in each of its severed parts,\nsince amid that multiplicity in which complete individuality has\nentailed complete partition, there is a permanent identity; we may\nthink of colour, qualities of all kinds, some particular shape,\nwhich can be present in many unrelated objects at the one\nmoment, each\nentire and yet with no community of experience among the various\nmanifestations. In the case of such ideal-forms we may\naffirm complete\npartibility.\n\nBut, on the other hand, that first utterly indivisible Kind must\nbe accompanied by a subsequent Essence, engendered by it and holding\nindivisibility from it but, in virtue of the necessary outgo from\nsource, tending firmly towards the contrary, the wholly\npartible; this\nsecondary Essence will take an intermediate Place between the first\nsubstance, the undivided, and that which is divisible in material\nthings and resides in them. Its presence, however, will differ in\none respect from that of colour and quantity; these, no doubt, are\npresent identically and entire throughout diverse material\nmasses, but\neach several manifestation of them is as distinct from every other\nas the mass is from the mass.\n\nThe magnitude present in any mass is definitely one\nthing, yet its\nidentity from part to part does not imply any such community as\nwould entail common experience; within that identity there is\ndiversity, for it is a condition only, not the actual Essence.\n\nThe Essence, very near to the impartible, which we assert to\nbelong to the Kind we are now dealing with, is at once an Essence\nand an entrant into body; upon embodiment, it experiences a\npartition unknown before it thus bestowed itself.\n\nIn whatsoever bodies it occupies- even the vastest of\nall, that in\nwhich the entire universe is included- it gives itself to the whole\nwithout abdicating its unity.\n\nThis unity of an Essence is not like that of body, which\nis a unit\nby the mode of continuous extension, the mode of distinct parts each\noccupying its own space. Nor is it such a unity as we have dealt\nwith in the case of quality.\n\nThe nature, at once divisible and indivisible, which we affirm\nto be soul has not the unity of an extended thing: it does\nnot consist\nof separate sections; its divisibility lies in its presence at every\npoint of the recipient, but it is indivisible as dwelling entire in\nthe total and entire in any part.\n\nTo have penetrated this idea is to know the greatness of the\nsoul and its power, the divinity and wonder of its being, as a\nnature transcending the sphere of Things.\n\nItself devoid of mass, it is present to all mass: it exists here\nand yet is There, and this not in distinct phases but with\nunsundered identity: thus it is \"parted and not parted,\" or, better,\nit has never known partition, never become a parted thing,\nbut remains\na self-gathered integral, and is \"parted among bodies\" merely in the\nsense that bodies, in virtue of their own sundered existence, cannot\nreceive it unless in some partitive mode; the partition, in other\nwords, is an occurrence in body not in soul.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. It can be demonstrated that soul must, necessarily, be of\njust this nature and that there can be no other soul than such a\nbeing, one neither wholly partible but both at once.\n\nIf it had the nature of body it would consist of isolated\nmembers each unaware of the conditions of every other; there would\nbe a particular soul- say a soul of the finger- answering as a\ndistinct and independent entity to every local experience; in\ngeneral terms, there would be a multiplicity of souls administering\neach individual; and, moreover, the universe would be governed not\nby one soul but by an incalculable number, each standing apart to\nitself. But, without a dominant unity, continuity is meaningless.\n\nThe theory that \"Impressions reach the leading-principle by\nprogressive stages\" must be dismissed as mere illusion.\n\nIn the first place, it affirms without investigation a \"leading\"\nphase of the soul.\n\nWhat can justify this assigning of parts to the soul, the\ndistinguishing one part from another? What quantity, or what\ndifference of quality, can apply to a thing defined as a\nself-consistent whole of unbroken unity?\n\nAgain, would perception be vested in that leading\nprinciple alone,\nor in the other phases as well?\n\nIf a given experience bears only on that \"leading principle,\" it\nwould not be felt as lodged in any particular members of the\norganism;\nif, on the other hand, it fastens on some other phase of the\nsoul- one\nnot constituted for sensation- that phase cannot transmit any\nexperience to the leading principle, and there can be no sensation.\n\nAgain, suppose sensation vested in the\n\"leading-principle\" itself:\nthen, a first alternative, it will be felt in some one part of that\n[some specifically sensitive phase], the other part excluding a\nperception which could serve no purpose; or, in the second\nalternative, there will be many distinct sensitive phases,\nan infinite\nnumber, with difference from one to another. In that second case,\none sensitive phase will declare \"I had this sensation primarily\";\nothers will have to say \"I felt the sensation that rose elsewhere\";\nbut either the site of the experience will be a matter of doubt to\nevery phase except the first, or each of the parts of the\nsoul will be\ndeceived into allocating the occurrence within its own particular\nsphere.\n\nIf, on the contrary, the sensation is vested not merely in the\n\"leading principle,\" but in any and every part of the soul, what\nspecial function raises the one rather than the other into that\nleading rank, or why is the sensation to be referred to it\nrather than\nelsewhere? And how, at this, account for the unity of the knowledge\nbrought in by diverse senses, by eyes, by ears?\n\nOn the other hand, if the soul is a perfect unity-\nutterly strange\nto part, a self-gathered whole- if it continuously eludes\nall touch of\nmultiplicity and divisibility- then, no whole taken up into it can\never be ensouled; soul will stand as circle-centre to every object\n[remote on the circumference], and the entire mass of a living being\nis soulless still.\n\nThere is, therefore, no escape: soul is, in the degree\nindicated, one and many, parted and impartible. We cannot\nquestion the\npossibility of a thing being at once a unity and multi-present,\nsince to deny this would be to abolish the principle which sustains\nand administers the universe; there must be a Kind which\nencircles and\nsupports all and conducts all with wisdom, a principle which is\nmultiple since existence is multiple, and yet is one soul\nalways since\na container must be a unity: by the multiple unity of its nature, it\nwill furnish life to the multiplicity of the series of an all; by\nits impartible unity, it will conduct a total to wise ends.\n\nIn the case of things not endowed with intelligence, the\n\"leading-principle\" is their mere unity- a lower reproduction of the\nsoul's efficiency.\n\nThis is the deeper meaning of the profound passage [in the\nTimaeus], where we read \"By blending the impartible, eternally\nunchanging essence with that in division among bodies, he produced a\nthird form of essence partaking of both qualities.\"\n\nSoul, therefore, is, in this definite sense, one and many; the\nIdeal-Form resident in body is many and one; bodies themselves are\nexclusively many; the Supreme is exclusively one.",
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