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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-4",
    "name": "Ennead IV — On the Soul"
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      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 9,
    "slug": "9-are-all-souls-one",
    "title": "IV.9 — Are All Souls One?",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1873,
    "text": "## NINTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### NINTH TRACTATE.\n\nARE ALL SOULS ONE?.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. That the Soul of every individual is one thing we deduce from\nthe fact that it is present entire at every point of the body- the\nsign of veritable unity- not some part of it here and another part\nthere. In all sensitive beings the sensitive soul is an omnipresent\nunity, and so in the forms of vegetal life the vegetal soul is\nentire at each several point throughout the organism.\n\nNow are we to hold similarly that your soul and mine and all are\none, and that the same thing is true of the universe, the soul in\nall the several forms of life being one soul, not parcelled out in\nseparate items, but an omnipresent identity?\n\nIf the soul in me is a unity, why need that in the universe be\notherwise seeing that there is no longer any question of\nbulk or body?\nAnd if that, too, is one soul and yours, and mine, belongs\nto it, then\nyours and mine must also be one: and if, again, the soul of the\nuniverse and mine depend from one soul, once more all must be one.\n\nWhat then in itself is this one soul?\n\nFirst we must assure ourselves of the possibility of all souls\nbeing one as that of any given individual is.\n\nIt must, no doubt, seem strange that my soul and that of any and\neverybody else should be one thing only: it might mean my feelings\nbeing felt by someone else, my goodness another's too, my desire,\nhis desire, all our experience shared with each other and with the\n(one-souled) universe, so that the very universe itself would feel\nwhatever I felt.\n\nBesides how are we to reconcile this unity with the\ndistinction of\nreasoning soul and unreasoning, animal soul and vegetal?\n\nYet if we reject that unity, the universe itself ceases to be\none thing and souls can no longer be included under any one\nprinciple.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Now to begin with, the unity of soul, mine and another's, is\nnot enough to make the two totals of soul and body identical. An\nidentical thing in different recipients will have different\nexperiences; the identity Man, in me as I move and you at rest,\nmoves in me and is stationary in you: there is nothing stranger,\nnothing impossible, in any other form of identity between you and\nme; nor would it entail the transference of my emotion to any\noutside point: when in any one body a hand is in pain, the\ndistress is\nfelt not in the other but in the hand as represented in the\ncentralizing unity.\n\nIn order that my feelings should of necessity be yours, the\nunity would have to be corporeal: only if the two recipient bodies\nmade one, would the souls feel as one.\n\nWe must keep in mind, moreover, that many things that happen\neven in one same body escape the notice of the entire being,\nespecially when the bulk is large: thus in huge sea-beasts, it is\nsaid, the animal as a whole will be quite unaffected by some\nmembral accident too slight to traverse the organism.\n\nThus unity in the subject of any experience does not imply that\nthe resultant sensation will be necessarily felt with any force upon\nthe entire being and at every point of it: some transmission of the\nexperience may be expected, and is indeed undeniable, but a full\nimpression on the sense there need not be.\n\nThat one identical soul should be virtuous in me and vicious in\nsomeone else is not strange: it is only saying that an\nidentical thing\nmay be active here and inactive there.\n\nWe are not asserting the unity of soul in the sense of a\ncomplete negation of multiplicity- only of the Supreme can that be\naffirmed- we are thinking of soul as simultaneously one and many,\nparticipant in the nature divided in body, but at the same time a\nunity by virtue of belonging to that Order which suffers no division.\n\nIn myself some experience occurring in a part of the\nbody may take\nno effect upon the entire man but anything occurring in the higher\nreaches would tell upon the partial: in the same way any influx from\nthe All upon the individual will have manifest effect since\nthe points\nof sympathetic contact are numerous- but as to any operation from\nourselves upon the All there can be no certainty.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Yet, looking at another set of facts, reflection tells us\nthat we are in sympathetic relation to each other, suffering,\novercome, at the sight of pain, naturally drawn to forming\nattachments; and all this can be due only to some unity among us.\n\nAgain, if spells and other forms of magic are efficient even at\na distance to attract us into sympathetic relations, the\nagency can be\nno other than the one soul.\n\nA quiet word induces changes in a remote object, and makes\nitself heard at vast distances- proof of the oneness of all things\nwithin the one soul.\n\nBut how reconcile this unity with the existence of a reasoning\nsoul, an unreasoning, even a vegetal soul?\n\n[It is a question of powers]: the indivisible phase is classed\nas reasoning because it is not in division among bodies, but there\nis the later phase, divided among bodies, but still one thing and\ndistinct only so as to secure sense-perception throughout; this is\nto be classed as yet another power; and there is the forming and\nmaking phase which again is a power. But a variety of powers does\nnot conflict with unity; seed contains many powers and yet it is one\nthing, and from that unity rises, again, a variety which is also a\nunity.\n\nBut why are not all the powers of this unity present everywhere?\n\nThe answer is that even in the case of the individual soul\ndescribed, similarly, as permeating its body, sensation is\nnot equally\npresent in all the parts, reason does not operate at every point,\nthe principle of growth is at work where there is no sensation- and\nyet all these powers join in the one soul when the body is\nlaid aside.\n\nThe nourishing faculty as dependent from the All belongs also to\nthe All-Soul: why then does it not come equally from ours?\n\nBecause what is nourished by the action of this power is a\nmember of the All, which itself has sensation passively; but the\nperception, which is an intellectual judgement, is individual and\nhas no need to create what already exists, though it would have done\nso had the power not been previously included, of necessity, in\nthe nature of the All.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. These reflections should show that there is nothing strange\nin that reduction of all souls to one. But it is still necessary to\nenquire into the mode and conditions of the unity.\n\nIs it the unity of origin in a unity? And if so, is the one\ndivided or does it remain entire and yet produce variety? and how\ncan an essential being, while remaining its one self, bring forth\nothers?\n\nInvoking God to become our helper, let us assert, that the very\nexistence of many souls makes certain that there is first one from\nwhich the many rise.\n\nLet us suppose, even, the first soul to be corporeal.\n\nThen [by the nature of body] the many souls could result\nonly from\nthe splitting up of that entity, each an entirely different\nsubstance:\nif this body-soul be uniform in kind, each of the resultant\nsouls must\nbe of the one kind; they will all carry the one Form undividedly and\nwill differ only in their volumes. Now, if their being souls\ndepended upon their volumes they would be distinct; but if it is\nideal-form that makes them souls, then all are, in virtue of this\nIdea, one.\n\nBut this is simply saying that there is one identical soul\ndispersed among many bodies, and that, preceding this, there is yet\nanother not thus dispersed, the source of the soul in\ndispersion which\nmay be thought of as a widely repeated image of the soul in unity-\nmuch as a multitude of seals bear the impression of one ring. By\nthat first mode the soul is a unit broken up into a variety\nof points:\nin the second mode it is incorporeal. Similarly if the soul were a\ncondition or modification of body, we could not wonder that this\nquality- this one thing from one source- should be present in many\nobjects. The same reasoning would apply if soul were an effect [or\nmanifestation] of the Conjoint.\n\nWe, of course, hold it to be bodiless, an essential existence.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. How then can a multitude of essential beings be really one?\n\nObviously either the one essence will be entire in all, or the\nmany will rise from a one which remains unaltered and yet\nincludes the\none- many in virtue of giving itself, without\nself-abandonment, to its\nown multiplication.\n\nIt is competent thus to give and remain, because while it\npenetrates all things it can never itself be sundered: this is an\nidentity in variety.\n\nThere is no reason for dismissing this explanation: we may think\nof a science with its constituents standing as one total, the source\nof all those various elements: again, there is the seed, a whole,\nproducing those new parts in which it comes to its division; each of\nthe new growths is a whole while the whole remains undiminished:\nonly the material element is under the mode of part, and all the\nmultiplicity remains an entire identity still.\n\nIt may be objected that in the case of science the constituents\nare not each the whole.\n\nBut even in the science, while the constituent selected for\nhandling to meet a particular need is present actually and takes the\nlead, still all the other constituents accompany it in a potential\npresence, so that the whole is in every part: only in this sense [of\nparticular attention] is the whole science distinguished from the\npart: all, we may say, is here simultaneously effected: each part is\nat your disposal as you choose to take it; the part invites the\nimmediate interest, but its value consists in its approach to the\nwhole.\n\nThe detail cannot be considered as something separate from the\nentire body of speculation: so treated it would have no technical or\nscientific value; it would be childish divagation. The one detail,\nwhen it is a matter of science, potentially includes all.\nGrasping one\nsuch constituent of his science, the expert deduces the rest by\nforce of sequence.\n\n[As a further illustration of unity in plurality] the\ngeometrician, in his analysis, shows that the single proposition\nincludes all the items that go to constitute it and all the\npropositions which can be developed from it.\n\nIt is our feebleness that leads to doubt in these matters; the\nbody obscures the truth, but There all stands out clear and separate.",
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