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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-5",
    "name": "Ennead V — On the Intellectual-Principle"
  },
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 7,
    "slug": "7-is-there-an-ideal-archetype-of",
    "title": "V.7 — Is There an Ideal Archetype of Particular Beings?",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 1077,
    "text": "## SEVENTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SEVENTH TRACTATE.\n\nIS THERE AN IDEAL ARCHETYPE OF\n\nPARTICULAR BEINGS?\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal\narchetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other\nhuman being go back to the Intellectual, every [living] thing having\norigin and principle There.\n\nIf Socrates, Socrates' soul, is external then the Authentic\nSocrates- to adapt the term- must be There; that is to say, the\nindividual soul has an existence in the Supreme as well as in this\nworld. If there is no such permanent endurance and what was Socrates\nmay with change of time become another soul and be Pythagoras or\nsomeone else- then the individual Socrates has not that existence in\nthe Divine.\n\nBut if the Soul of the individual contains the Reason-Principles\nof all that it traverses, once more all men have their [archetypic]\nexistence There: and it is our doctrine that every soul contains all\nthe Reason-Principles that exist in the Kosmos: since then the\nKosmos contains the Reason-Principles not merely of man, but also of\nall individual living things, so must the Soul. Its content of\nReason-Principles, then, must be limitless, unless there be a\nperiodical renovation bounding the boundlessness by the return of a\nformer series.\n\nBut if [in virtue of this periodic return] each archetype may be\nreproduced by numerous existents, what need is there that there be\ndistinct Reason-Principles and archetypes for each existent\nin any one\nperiod? Might not one [archetypal] man suffice for all, and\nsimilarly a limited number of souls produce a limitless\nnumber of men?\n\nNo: one Reason-Principle cannot account for distinct and\ndiffering\nindividuals: one human being does not suffice as the\nexemplar for many\ndistinct each from the other not merely in material constituents but\nby innumerable variations of ideal type: this is no question of\nvarious pictures or images reproducing an original Socrates; the\nbeings produced differ so greatly as to demand distinct\nReason-Principles. The entire soul-period conveys with it all the\nrequisite Reason-Principles, and so too the same existents\nappear once\nmore under their action.\n\nThere is no need to baulk at this limitlessness in the\nIntellectual; it is an infinitude having nothing to do with number\nor part; what we may think of it as its outgoing is no other than\nits characteristic Act.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. But individuals are brought into being by the union of the\nReason-Principles of the parents, male and female: this seems to do\naway with a definite Reason-Principle for each of the offspring: one\nof the parents- the male let us say- is the source; and the\noffspring is determined not by Reason-Principles differing from\nchild to child but by one only, the father's or that of the father's\nfather.\n\nNo: a distinct Reason-Principle may be the determinant for the\nchild since the parent contains all: they would become effective at\ndifferent times.\n\nAnd so of the differences among children of the same parents: it\nis a matter of varying dominance: either the offspring- whether it\nso appears or not- has been mainly determined by, now, the male,\nnow, the female or, while each principle has given itself entire and\nlies there within, yet it effectively moulds one portion of\nthe bodily\nsubstance rather than another.\n\nAnd how [by the theory of a divine archetype of each individual]\nare the differences caused by place to be explained?\n\nIs the differentiating element to be found in the varying\nresistance of the material of the body?\n\nNo: if this were so, all men with the exception of one only\nwould be untrue to nature.\n\nDifference everywhere is a good, and so there must be differing\narchetypes, though only to evil could be attribute any power\nin Matter\nto thwart nature by overmastering the perfect Reason-Principles,\nhidden but given, all.\n\nStill, admitting the diversity of the Reason-principles, why\nneed there by as many as there are men born in each Period,\nonce it is\ngranted that different beings may take external manifestation under\nthe presence of the same principles?\n\nUnder the presence of all; agreed: but with the dominance of the\nvery same? That is still open to question.\n\nMay we not take it that there may be identical reproduction from\none Period to another but not in the same Period?\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. In the case of twin birth among human beings how can we make\nout the Reason-Principles to be different; and still more\nwhen we turn\nto the animals and especially those with litters?\n\nWhere the young are precisely alike, there is one\nReason-Principle.\n\nBut this would mean that after all there are not as many Reason\nPrinciples as separate beings?\n\nAs many as there are of differing beings, differing by something\nmore than a mere failure in complete reproduction of their Idea.\n\nAnd why may not this [sharing of archetype] occur also in beings\nuntouched by differentiation, if indeed there be any such?\n\nA craftsman even in constructing an object identical with a\nmodel must envisage that identity in a mental\ndifferentiation enabling\nhim to make a second thing by bringing in some difference\nside by side\nwith the identity: similarly in nature, where the thing comes about\nnot by reasoning but in sole virtue of Reason-Principles, that\ndifferentiation must be included in the archetypal idea, though it\nis not in our power to perceive the difference.\n\nThe consideration of Quantity brings the same result:\n\nIf production is undetermined in regard to Quantity, each thing\nhas its distinct Reason-Principle: if there is a measured system the\nQuantity has been determined by the unrolling and unfolding of the\nReason-Principles of all the existences.\n\nThus when the universe has reached its term, there will\nbe a fresh\nbeginning, since the entire Quantity which the Kosmos is to exhibit,\nevery item that is to emerge in its course, all is laid up from the\nfirst in the Being that contains the Reason-Principles.\n\nAre we, then, looking to the brute realm, to hold that there are\nas many Reason-Principles as distinct creatures born in a litter?\n\nWhy not? There is nothing alarming about such limitlessness in\ngenerative forces and in Reason-Principles, when Soul is there to\nsustain all.\n\nAs in Soul [principle of Life] so in Divine Mind [principle of\nIdea] there is this infinitude of recurring generative powers; the\nBeings there are unfailing.",
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