THE

PH ILO SO PH
O F PL O T IN U S

By E M I L E BREHIER
T ra u ila ltd hy J O S E P H THOMAS
THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
PLOTINUS

By ÉMILE BREHIER

Translated by Joseph Thomas

Translated from Emile Bréhier, La Philosophie
de Plotin, published by Librairie A . Hatier
8, rue d’Assas, Paris VI, France

L ib ra ry o f C ongress Catalog C a r d Nu m ber: 5 8 - 1 1 9 4 6

T he U n iv e r s it y of C h ic a g o P ress, C h ic a g o & L ondon

The U niversity o f Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada

© 1 9 5 8 by T h e U niversity o f C hicago. A l l rights reserved

Published 1 9 5 8 . T h ird Impression 1 9 6 7 . Printed in the
United States o f Am erica
 TRAN SLATO R’S NOTE

M. Bréhier has written not only a critical

work but also a clear and readable exposition o f the philos­
ophy o f Plotinus which will serve as an admirable introduc­
tion to his thought. Few Plotinian scholars combine such a
rich historical background with critical scholarship and phil­
osophical insight as M. Bréhier does. Scholars acknowledge
that the Introductions to his French translation o f the En-
neads contain masterful analyses o f the arguments and that he
traces the sources o f the philosophy o f Plotinus with great
ability. The translation itself is one o f the most lucid and ac­
curate in existence.
I wish to thank both Professor Thomas R. Palfrey o f the
department o f romance languages in Northwestern Univer­
sity and Professor Joseph Katz o f the department o f philos­
ophy in Vassar College for their most generous assistance.
The two excellent translations into English o f selections from
the Enneads by Professor Katz and by Mr. A. H. Armstrong,
Gladstone professor o f Greek in the University o f Liverpool,
were especially helpful. I am grateful to Mr. George W. Ball
and M. Hubert Mathé-Dumaine in the Paris office o f Cleary,
Gottlieb, Friendly and Ball, Washington, D.C., who ob­
tained the translation license for me from Librairie A. Hatier.
M y greatest debt is to M. Bréhier himself, who not only

V
t r a n s l a t o r ' s n o t e

read the translation and approved it but also added footnotes

and prepared a new bibliography for the English edition. 1
alone am responsible for any inaccuracies which may still re­
main.
J o seph T hom as

TRAN SLATO R’S NOTE

TO THE
SECOND PRINTING

It is gratifying that the English translation

o f M. Brehier’s La Philosophic de Plotin has been received with
sufficient interest by Plotinian scholars to justify a second
printing. A few corrections and changes and additions to the
Bibliographical Note have been made as suggested by critics.
The revival o f interest in Plotinus in the English-speaking
world is due in no small measure to the works o f W . R. Inge,
Stephen MacKenna, Thomas Whittaker, E. R. Dodds,
B. A. G. Fuller, and, more recently, A. H. Armstrong,
Joseph Katz, B. S. Page, Philippus Villiers Pistorius, and
Paul Oskar Kristeller both as writer and teacher. We are
grateful to them.
It is hoped that Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolph Schwyzer
will persevere until they complete the third and final volume
o f the monumental critical edition o f the text o f Plotinus.

J. T.

vi
 CONTENTS

Introduction I

The Third Century of Our Era 13

The “ Enneads” 20

The Fundamental Problem in the Philosophy ofPlotinus 32

The Procession 43

The Soul 53

Intelligence 83

The Orientalism of Plotinus 106

The One 132

The Sensible World and Matter 164

Conclusion 182

Author s Bibliographical Note 198

Index 203

vii
 INTRODUCTION

The following pages reproduce almost

without change the lectures o f a course given at the Sor-
bonne during the winter o f 1921-22, in the form in which
they were published by the Revue des cours et conferences. They
do not contain a complete account o f the whole philosophy
o f Plotinus; for some important questions were omitted,
namely, those concerning the sensible world, nature, matter,
and evil in its relation to matter.1 We limited our study to
what Plotinus calls, collectively, the intelligible. We left off
where, according to his expression, “ divine things stop,” that
is, with the Soul, below which there is nothing but disorder
and the ugliness o f matter.
We have nevertheless retained the title The Philosophy of
Plotinus for this study o f “ divine things,” the One, Intelli­
gence, and Soul, because we believe that the heart o f his
thought is contained in them. These divine things constitute
the beloved native land to which the Ulysses who is the wan­
dering soul in the sensible world is bound to return; and, like
Ulysses, the soul must flee from the enchantment o f sensible
things, from the charms o f Circe.
O f this native land o f the soul, Plotinus had so vivid, so
profound, and so continually present a consciousness that his
1 M . Brehier completed his study with a chapter on “ The Sensible W orld
and M atter” for inclusion in the English translation, but, ow ing to the delay
in the completion o f the translation and publication, it was included in the
second French edition first.
1
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

work remains incomparable among the many intellectual ad­

venturers who set out upon the same quest at that time.
This introduction is designed to define more precisely the
state o f mind which this passionate taste for another world
implies.
In the first century o f our era, in opposition to the Stoic
schools, which, as in Musonius or Epictetus, provided above
all a preparation for the practical life, movements arose o f an
entirely different kind which isolated themselves from the
normal conditions o f civil and political life and devoted
themselves wholly to the contemplation o f divine things.
The work o f Philo o f Alexandria gives evidence o f these new
tendencies throughout. From it we learn that the contempla­
tives formed societies. Communities organized like that o f
the Therapeutae, which Philo describes in his treatise Con­
templative Life, led a strictly ordered life whose details were
all subordinated to the exchange o f thoughts on divine
things. During the first three centuries o f our era, especially
in Egypt, there must have been numerous communities o f
this sort, which, without practicing the monastic life o f the
Therapeutae, nevertheless united their efforts and engaged in
meditation. We have a proof o f their existence in the Her­
metic writings, which give us access to the discussions within
these schools, with the doctrinal divergences revealing a life
which was intense without being harmful to the unity o f
their inspiration.
One should distinguish, rather precisely, these groups o f
contemplative theologians from the religious groups proper
which, during the same period, devoted themselves to the
practice o f rites and sacraments. The Therapeutae described
by Philo, like Philo himself for that matter, knew nothing o f
this kind o f thing; and in almost none o f the Hermetic writ-

2
 Introduction

ings is there even a remote allusion to outward practices of

this sort. After discussion and instruction, the Hermetic ex­
pressed his religious sentiment exclusively through pious
hymns.
Thus there arose, especially on Egyptian soil, a new type
o f contemplative, as different from the philosopher o f the
Hellenic tradition as from the practitioner o f religions. A
work such as that o f Plotinus is unintelligible if one attempts
to connect it directly with the Greek tradition, no less than
if one sees it as part o f the religion o f the mysteries. On the
other hand, the collective practice o f contemplation, in
which Plotinus participated, explains certain important traits
o f his philosophy most successfully. If the contemplative at­
titude is pursued to the end unfalteringly, it brings about
that vision o f things o f which Plotinus gives the most perfect
model to be found in antiquity. For, to adopt this attitude
without reservation, we must, through thought, abstract
from the nature o f things everything which constitutes a
practical relationship o f any sort between ourselves and
others. We must make ourselves subject to “ pure knowl­
edge.”
The characteristics o f intelligible reality arise in Plotinus
from this attitude o f mind. One is immediately struck by all
the negations it contains. There is no longer in Plotinus the
philanthropist God o f the Stoics who goes forth to help
men, no longer any providential will which executes the
work o f the world according to a plan; nor is there any long­
er any o f that confidence o f which the prayers and the self­
surrender o f man to the gods bear testimony. All this is char­
acteristic o f practical relationships which, if they existed in
the divine world, would force the soul to take an attitude
other than that o f contemplation toward that world.

3
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

Plotinus’ negations follow in the train o f other ideas. At

the time o f Plotinus the contemplative stream o f ideas was
traditionally linked to a predilection for Plato. Philo and the
Hermetics had a like affection for the Timaeus, and its formu­
las were quite familiar to them. This affinity, this profound
admiration, did not prevent Plotinus, however, from giving
up the master or, what amounts to the same thing, from in­
terpreting him in his own way whenever Plato introduced
into reality an act or operation o f an order different from
contemplation. In Plotinus we no longer behold the Demi­
urge o f the Timaeus, which brings about the creation o f the
sensible world according to an ideal model. There is no
longer the dialectical construction o f ideas whose principles
are found in the Philebus and the Sophist, any more than
there is the geometrical construction o f the elements in the
Timaeus, both o f which bring in ideal operations which hin­
der, arrest, and retard contemplation. A sensible world whose
order has neither beginning nor end, an intelligible world
which is not created, even in thought, since in it all exists
simultaneously and since because o f this transparency nothing
interferes with vision—these assertions are certainly not those
o f a disciple o f the Plato who, according to tradition, denied
entrance to his school to anyone who was not a geometrician.
In Aristode, Plotinus approved especially o f the supreme
value which is accorded to contemplation among the powers
o f the soul. Still, he found Aristotle rather timid in dealing
with this state, and he devoted a whole treatise (Enneads
iii. 8) to point out that the practical and creative powers o f
the soul, nature, and art, powers which fashion objects, are
not fundamentally different from contemplation, o f which
they form the lowest degree.
One sees the extent to which contemplation became all­

4
 Introduction

absorbing. Not only did it take complete possession o f the

soul, to which one might say, in the language o f Leibniz,
Plotinus gave no other attribute than that o f perception.
Contemplation also did away with and banished every defi­
nite object from reality. To enter into the intelligible, to
contemplate, is to leave the limited and circumscribed be­
hind. To contemplate is to ascend into a region where there
is no longer anything really distinguishable. According to a
comparison suggested by Plotinus, the sensible is to the in­
telligible as the face is to the expression. In the sensible face
there are symmetrical parts and calculable dimensions. The
expression can be neither subdivided nor measured. But if
every definite object constitutes an obstacle, the very logic o f
the system forbids anyone to envisage, in contemplation,
anything but the act o f contemplating which is itself its own
object; and that is in fact exactly the inference Plotinus draws.
The Plotinian theme par excellence, the one to which the
contemplative mystics o f every age will return, is that o f the
solitude o f the sage who is alone with the supreme principle
which he has attained because he has successively abandoned
all finite and definite reality. This solitary country in which
the sage no longer has friends, family, or fellow citizens is
the counterpart o f that world beyond, peopled by benevolent
or malevolent beings, into which the mythologies and re­
ligions usher the soul after death. Stoicism proposed to its
followers a sort o f realm o f ends, a city o f Zeus which is only
an ideal transposition o f the terrestrial city, because the Stoic
sage lives and insists upon living in the terrestrial city. But
the contemplative began by withdrawing himself from it.
The uninhabited and infinite solitude o f the highest reality,
to which no one found admittance, answers to his most cher­
ished hope. The contemplative can only be a recluse, ex-

3
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

pecting no sympathetic echo from the marvelous reality

whose vision he possesses; and this reality cannot be defined,
for the contemplator wants to escape from every particular
relation which binds him to an object.
We propose then to try to make clear a way o f life rather
than a doctrine in the works o f Plotinus. It is a mistake to
consider Plotinus above all as the architect o f the hypostases.
He found the trinity o f the Good, Intelligence, and Soul in
the Platonists o f his time, who had themselves derived it from
a loose interpretation o f the Timaeus and o f the sixth book o f
the Republic. It was a tradition o f the school. The important
thing is to see how he interpreted it, retaining only the char­
acteristics which agreed with his need for contemplation.
We shall see that this interpretation ended sometimes in
effacing the exact contours o f these hypostases to the point o f
showing their union and continuity rather than their sepa­
rateness.
How does an indefinite contemplation, which is so formal
and empty, exercise such an effect upon sensibility as to oc­
cupy it completely? But is that contemplation as empty as it
appears at first? For it is not enough to say that Plotinus was
conscious o f the intelligible world. Rather, this conscious­
ness amounted to sensuality: touch, the sparkle o f lights,
transparency, taste, smell. The intelligible world retains all
that it can o f what is purest, most exquisite, and most delicate
in our sensations.
Here is a kind o f about-face. Everything we have said
above implies that the contemplation o f the intelligible goes
beyond thought, at least ordinary thought which is discur­
sive. But, on the other hand, note how Plotinus, through his
expressions, lowers the intelligible to the level o f the sensible.
To say the least, the only words which are suitable for the

6
 Introduction

purpose o f expressing our contemplation o f the intelligible

are those which designate sensible impressions, and not those
which relate to logical thinking. This sort o f affinity between
the “ intelligible” and the “ sensible,” which connects them
above the level o f thought, must be explained. But explana­
tion is possible only if one realizes what the spectacle o f the
sensible world was for Plotinus.
“ There are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt o f in your philosophy,” said Hamlet to Horatio.
This is indeed what modern man has believed since the six­
teenth century. The sensible world itself contains an infinite
wealth which presents new problems continually to the
mind because it is always necessary to devise new intellectu­
al means to capture this wealth. Intelligence is a sort o f ever
perfectible instrument designed to explore the reality pre­
sented to the senses.
This was not the belief o f a third-century Hellene con­
vinced o f the truth o f a cosmology which had been tradi­
tional for almost eight centuries. Philosophy then was ex­
hausting, or thought to be exhausting, everything that
existed “ in heaven and on earth.” There was nothing less
mysterious than this spherical world, limited by animated
orbs o f a circular movement, and in which all things below
the moon were governed by the elementary forces, warmth
and dryness, coldness and moisture. Curiosity was about to
turn away from a world which had so little o f the hidden
left to reveal. Perhaps never before had human intelligence
believed itself to be so close to the attainment o f the true
system o f the universe, and it was only in getting away from
this world that intelligence could still be stimulated.
Besides, this system had an opening through which the
mind uncovered a reality infinitely more captivating. The

7
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

sensible world is indeed full o f events which surpass the oper­

ation o f the elementary forces: the circular movement o f the
stars, the sympathetic influence o f the parts o f the world upon
each other, the strange and unpredictable actions o f the sub­
stances which the physician or the alchemist observe, the
latent life o f minerals seemingly inert, finally, and above all,
the marvelous phenomenon o f light which penetrates the at­
mosphere instantly, without encountering the least resistance
—these show us the constant presence in this world o f myste­
rious realities whose action is subject to no material condi­
tion.
In Plotinus’ day and even before, there were two ways in
which sensible things were described. One was that o f the
philosophers, the other that o f direct experience, o f the tech­
niques, rational or superstitious, o f the physicians and metal­
lurgists, as well as o f astrologers and the makers o f philters
and incantations. On the one hand, there existed a natural
philosophy in which the only actions were those o f finite
forces in a limited world. On the other hand, there was an
unlimited collection o f data which was enlarged by the in­
creasing experience o f travelers and naturalists and which led
to technical rules rather than to philosophical explanations.
The duality o f these two natural philosophies is an important
point in the history o f ancient thought. It was maintained,
moreover, throughout the Middle Ages, which knew and
studied the Natural History o f Pliny the Elder, the standard
work in which all the curious facts which he succeeded in
finding were collected and classified. The protests o f Roger
Bacon in the thirteenth century, in favor o f experiment and
o f “ the experts,” constituted only the resumption o f a long
tradition.
But these two “ natural philosophies” were never clearly

8
 Introduction

separated, and the story o f their mutual interplay would

throw considerable light upon the evolution o f philosophical
doctrines. The doctrine o f Plotinus is a classical instance o f
the attempt to develop the conception o f a universe which is
alive and filled with wonderful forces. Such at least was
Plotinus* intent. For he was the very opposite o f a sight-seer
and collector o f unusual facts. To be sure, one could draw
up a rather long list from his works, if one enumerated all
the tnirabilia—telepathy, incantation, magical statues—to
which at least he alludes in order to find evidence o f the un­
known powers which proceed from “ yonder.” Above all, he
sought systematically to discover the activity o f the same
powers in the most ordinary phenomena. It is the apparently
exceptional which becomes the rule and very essence o f
things. Sympathetic magic is a rarity only in appearance.
The truth is rather that nature is herself a thing o f magic.
W hy be so amazed concerning action at a distance, since one
o f the most common o f existing phenomena, namely, visual
perception, implies a similar action? For, according to Ploti­
nus, the sympathetic affinity between the eye and light is the
only reason for perception, in which a supposed transmission
o f movement from the source to the eye plays no part. All
that is needed in order that this affinity may exist is that the
eye and the source form part o f the same world, that is to
say, o f a world animated by a single Soul. If, to suppose the
impossible, we were to grant the existence o f a visible object
foreign and external to the world, no eye would be able to
see it. W hy be astonished then that the astrologer can predict
the fate o f a human being through the position o f the stars
at his birth? For, without granting any voluntary and inten­
tional action on the part o f the stars, it is natural that all parts
o f a world animated by one and the same Soul communicate

9
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

with and respond to each other, as the movements o f a

dancer’s limbs, thanks to the unity o f his purpose, respond
to each other in the figure which he executes.
For Plotinus then, the supernatural is everywhere and
throughout all sensible things. But its habitual presence
keeps us from perceiving it, just as the constant sight o f the
starry heavens is the reason that we no longer admire their
beauty. The whole natural philosophy o f Plotinus consists
in striving against habit, in rousing our dulled sense o f the su­
pernatural. Everywhere his natural philosophy points out
the inner affinities which are due to the activity o f the Soul
but which are concealed under the appearances.
N ow the intelligible world is precisely this inner aspect o f
things, the knowledge o f which appears to be a sort o f deep­
ening o f sensation, rather than merely an abstraction. The
beauty o f a face does not consist in the mere symmetry o f its
parts; for faces which are symmetrical may be too cold to be
beautiful. Beauty is in the expression o f the face, in that un-
definable warmth which animates it. It is this warmth which
Plotinus calls “ intelligible.” Accordingly, if this “ intelli­
gible” is not in the naked sensation, neither is it in the
thought which reasons, composes, and grasps relationships.
Ic already exists above and outside o f every form admitting
construction and analysis.
N ow what the expression is to the face, the whole o f in­
telligible reality is to the whole o f the sensible world. This
reality is, so to say, the physiognomy o f the universe, the ex­
pression o f the face which it displays to our senses. To think,
for Plotinus, is then to comprehend the unity o f a composi­
tion o f which sensations acquaint us only with the dispersed
elements—the intention o f the dancer in the multiplicity o f
movements in a dance figure, the living unity o f the circular

10
 Introduction

course o f a star across the infinity o f positions it occupies

successively. It is to proceed toward a reality which, far
from losing anything o f the richness o f sensation, quite to the
contrary goes beyond it and uncovers its depth.
Thus the explanation is found for the sensuous, striking,
and moving character o f intelligible reality in the philosophy
o f Plotinus. The contemplation o f the intelligible proceeds
along the same line as the contemplation o f the sensible. It
extends the contemplation o f the sensible directly without
passing in any way through the intermediary o f logically
connected ideas; for it is not through reasoning and induc­
tion that one ascends from the first to the second but only
through a more collected and intense contemplation.
But if, in the vision which Plotinus had o f things, sensible
reality is such as to permit this deepening and this direct pas­
sage to the intelligible, it is because it is already the object o f
a contemplation. So marvelous a world, with its mysterious
relations, is not the world o f everyday objects which man
utilizes and upon which he depends. It is the world o f the
solitary and detached contemplative who has escaped from
magic and from the domination o f material things. Thus the
term which unites the sensible and the intelligible and which
opposes them both to discursive thought is, ever and always,
contemplation.
It is this consideration which has been the point o f depar­
ture in regard to the historical problems which I have been
led to consider on the subject o f Plotinus. The old idea o f a
Hellenism developing in a vacuum became obsolete long
ago, and we cannot continue to study writers as i f this were
not the case. After Alexander the Greeks without doubt did
“ Hellenize” the Orient; but, inversely, Egypt, “ the land
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

where gods are invented,” 2 stamped its powerful imprint not

only upon the customs but upon the ideas o f the Greeks, in
spite o f the efforts o f the rulers o f Egypt to keep the Egyp­
tians in a subordinate state. But we have come to believe,
as will be seen, that it is necessary to look beyond Egypt in
order to render the thought o f Plotinus intelligible. In trac­
ing connections as far as India we have kept Alexandria in
mind, which according to a recent writer “ continually wit­
nessed a cosmopolitan throng passing through or taking up
residence. The little bronze statues and terra cottas enable us
to distinguish the very marked ethnic types. Greeks, Italians,
Syrians, Libyans, Cilicians, Ethiopians, Arabs, Bactrians,
Scythians, Indians, Persians—this is the long list which Saint
John Chrysostom still gave in the fourth century.” 3
And we have deemed it legitimate and even necessary to
advance a hypothesis on the relations o f Plotinus to India
which others who are more competent will perhaps want to
investigate and verify.
2 See “ Asclepius” 23b, trans. W alter Scott, in Hermetica (4 vols.; O x ­
ford: Clarendon Press, 1924-36), I, 3 3 8 , 1. 6.
3 Victor Chapot, Le monde romain (Paris: Renaissance du livre, 1927),
p. 292.

12
 I
THE THIRD CENTURY

OF OUR ERA

There are few periods more dramatic

than the end o f pagandom. The Roman Empire, which was
threatened from the outside by the barbarians to the north
and by the Persians to the east, was at the same time torn to
pieces internally by crises o f every description. A moral, so­
cial, and intellectual upheaval turned upside down the values
by which the ancient world had lived. It was an epoch filled
with the picturesque too, and the historian o f thought may
easily be led astray by the medley o f doctrines and the bizarre
and unforeseen blending o f ideas from the Orient and Asia
Minor with those o f ancient Greek philosophy.
The third century, the century o f Plotinus (204-^70), was
undoubtedly one o f the most troubled periods o f the age.
And the formation o f his philosophy, which claimed to pre­
serve the thought o f the ancient world in all its fulness,
coincided precisely with the time in which, according to the
recent study by Ferrero,1 the fall o f ancient civilization oc­
curred. “ The revolt o f Maximinus (235),” he says, “ marked
the beginning o f an endless series o f civil and foreign wars,
1 Guglielm o Ferrero, La ruitte de la civilisation antique (Paris, 19 2 1), p. 43.
Translated by the Hon. Lady Whitehead, The Ruin o f the Ancient C iviliza­
tion and the Triumph o f Christianity (N ew Y o rk and London: G. P. Put­
nam’s Sons, 19 2 1), pp. 3 1 , 60, 6 1, 62, 37, 38.

13
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

o f various calamities, plagues, and famines which continued

without interruption for a half-century and which depopu­
lated and impoverished the empire, destroying the elite by
whom it had been governed, pacified, and civilized during
the first and second centuries, and, with the elite, the peace­
time arts and the best part o f Greek and Latin culture.” “ The
level o f culture,” he adds,2 “ declined everywhere—in phi­
losophy, law, and literature—because the new rulers despised
it and were unacquainted with it. The decadence spread to
all the industrial arts. Finally, the religion which had been
the foundation o f the political, social, and intellectual life—
pagan polytheism—was in the process o f expiring. Oriental
cults were making inroads everywhere. The cosmopolitan­
ism o f the Empire, the mingling o f races, religions, customs,
and cultures, the unification o f the government, new re­
ligious and philosophical doctrines—these had struck a death­
blow both to polytheism and to the spirit o f local tradition.
Greco-Latin civilization was aristocratic to an extent which
we can scarcely surmise; its strength lay in the very limited
elite.”
In fact, this epoch witnessed the final and irreparable over­
throw o f the dogmatic philosophies, Stoicism and Epicure­
anism, which had been the moral guides o f the cultured for
five centuries. At the close o f the second century, the skepti­
cism o f a Sextus Empiricus mustered every possible argu­
ment against them; and the austere ideals o f the Stoics sur­
vived only in some ragged Cynics for whom philosophic
thought no longer counted.
On the other hand, it was the age o f commentators who
studied Plato or who, like Alexander o f Aphrodisias, a little
before Plotinus’ time, wrote detailed commentaries upon the
* Ibid., p. 79.

H
 The Third Century of Our Era

works o f Aristotle. Philosophers were always anxious to be

connected with a tradition and to present their thoughts
merely as the exegesis o f the works o f the old masters. Ploti­
nus himself was no exception: “ We must believe that some
o f the ancient and blessed philosophers,” he wrote devoutly,
“ discovered the truth; and it is only natural to inquire who
o f them found it and how we may obtain a knowledge o f
it.” 3 “ Our theories,” he declares further, “ contain nothing
new and are not o f the present. They were expressed long
ago but without being developed, and we are only the in­
terpreters o f these old doctrines, whose antiquity is attested
by the writings o f Plato” (v. x. 9).
These declarations are somewhat exaggerated! For, in re­
ality, Plotinus’ philosophy was deeply influenced by the spirit
o f the age. During the decline o f all scientific and moral spec­
ulations, the religious consciousness, seizing both the imagi­
nation and the mind, developed with a vigor which was
without precedent in the West. There came into existence,
even before the time o f Plotinus, an inverse and converging
movement in philosophy, whose conceptions o f the uni­
verse were fully directed to the solution o f the problem o f
human destiny and o f religion and which rejected the possi­
bility o f solving the problem o f the salvation o f the soul
without a philosophical system o f the universe.
On the one hand, the preceding century witnessed, with
Apuleius or Numenius, the renewal o f Platonism; for men
thought that they found in Plato a philosophy which satis­
fied religious needs. From Platonism they took everything

3 Enneads iii. 7 .1 3 (this and all subsequent references are to the Guillaume
Budé edition, edited and translated b y Em ile Bréhier [7 vols.; Paris: Société
d ’édition “ Les Belles Lettres,” 1924-38], and w ill appear in parentheses in
the text itself).

15
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

which served this end, and they developed some o f its ideas
which had played a rather unimportant role, such as the the­
ory o f daemons. In Apuleius this theory is o f prime impor­
tance, because these intermediary beings rendered possible
the union o f the soul with God.
On the other hand, the religions admitted philosophical
conceptions into themselves as integral parts. Within Chris­
tianity during the third century there was a continuous de­
velopment o f Gnostic theories which linked the drama o f
salvation and redemption to an intricate cosmogony and cos­
mology. And the Christians o f Alexandria who fought these
heresies, the Clements and the Origens, were nevertheless
philosophers in their own way, who expressed their theologi­
cal thought by means o f Greek concepts. It was an epoch
which favored universal religions, such as astral religion. We
must indeed understand that the claim to universality rested
upon the conviction that the propositions which astral re­
ligion affirmed were philosophically and scientifically true.
The imperial government itself aspired to this universality,
and the emperor Aurelian, who four years after the death o f
Plotinus established the cult o f Deus Sol at Rome, saw in it
no doubt a means o f consolidating the unity o f the empire.
“ He had placed in the temple o f the new god the two
statues o f Helios, the Greco-Latin sun, and o f Baal, repre­
sentative o f Oriental solar divinities.” 4 Thus the fusion o f
creeds coincided quite naturally with a tendency to make
them rest upon a conception o f the universe.

Nevertheless, this convergence o f philos­

ophy and religion, in a thinker o f the caliber o f Plotinus, did
not end in confusion.
« Léon Hom o, Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Aurélien (Paris: A . Fonte-
moing, 1904), p. 190.

16
 The Third Century of Our Era

First o f all, in certain respects the system o f Plotinus may

be placed in the same line o f thought as the theological specu­
lations o f Origen. Both are marked by a relative sobriety o f
imagination and a certain tendency to react against excessive
fancies, such as those o f the second-century Neoplatonists or
the Gnostics. The third century was, on the whole, o f a ra­
tionalist turn o f mind, and it had not yet given itself over to
theurgy and to the magical practices to which the last Neo­
platonists were to descend.
But there is a more profound reason. It is sufficient to read
the treatise that Plotinus wrote, Against the Gnosticsy to un­
derstand the extent to which he was conscious o f the conflict
between the conceptions o f the universe and o f life which
the new religions o f salvation offered their believers and the
old Hellenic conceptions to which he was attached.
On the one hand, there is a historical, dramatic, and mythi­
cal conception o f the universe. The universe has a real his­
tory. It contains crises marked by profound transformations.
Creation, fall, and redemption (no matter whether creation
precedes the fall, or follows it as in the Gnostics) are due to
unpredictable and unforeseen causes; and, not having their
ground in the very essence o f things but in good or evil acts
o f the will, they produce only a transitory state. There is
nothing o f the eternal either in the genesis or in the conse­
quences o f the fall.
On the other hand, there is a rational conception o f reality.
Greek philosophy from beginning to end (and even in the
De principiis o f Damascius, written in the sixth century) en­
deavored above all to discover a rational connection between
the forms o f reality, thanks to which things follow one an­
other inevitably and without the least arbitrariness. All that
appears changeable and variable in the universe is attenuated

17
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

as much as possible. In fact (and this is one o f the beliefs dear

to Plotinus) time is thought to be divided into long periods
o f recurrence, each o f which reproduces the same events in
the same order. Thus the stable is introduced into the un­
stable; and the transitory is, properly speaking, something
which has no right to exist.
When an educated pagan judged the Christian conception
o f the universe worthy o f his consideration, he was not mis­
taken. Celsus, who was a cultivated spirit but with no great
philosophical depth, remarked aptly in The True Discourse,
which he wrote in 178 against the Christians, that here was
the very point which rendered the two doctrines irrecon­
cilable: “ If we change the least o f things here below,” he
says, “ everything will be upset and will disappear.” N ow
the Incarnation is such a change. As he exclaims further on,
“ It is only after an eternity then that God remembered to
judge men! Previously, he was not concerned with them
at all!” 5
From these two conceptions o f the universe two radically
different notions o f the spiritual life were derived. If reality
is a finished rational system without any history, the ideal
would consist solely in understanding this reality just as it is,
beyond the appearances which conceal it. The spiritual life
is purely and simply the unfolding o f contemplative intelli­
gence. It has no place for the sort o f profound renewal o f
being, that rebirth to which not only Christianity but every
religion o f the epoch aspired.
N ow it is evident that there is in Plotinus both an affinity
for and an aversion to the new religious forms. The affinity
is due to the intense feeling which he had for the spiritual
life. It is due to the fact that the essential problem for him
5 Cited by Origen Against Celsus iv. 3.

18
 The Third Century o f Our Era

was the restoration o f the soul to its pristine state. The aver­
sion is due to his strictly rationalist conception o f the uni­
verse, which denies any profound change. The man who
wrote: “ If things are steadily improving, they could not
have been good from the very first! Or, if they were good,
they must remain unaltered” (vi. 7. 2) is evidently at the op­
posite pole from the Christian position.
From this complex historical position there results the ten­
sion that one feels continually in the philosophy and even in
the style o f Plotinus. From it the divergence in interpreta­
tions o f his relations to the thought o f his time follows also.
Vacherot sees in him chiefly the eclectic who more or less
successfully combined the various traditions. The early his­
torians o f philosophy, Brucker and Tenneman, considered
the system o f Plotinus as resulting from an influx o f Oriental
ideas foreign to the Greek mind. On the other hand, Richter,6
and more recently H. F. Müller,7 consider him a faithful ad­
herent to Hellenic rationalism.
The disagreement is easily explained. Plotinus was devoted
to Greek philosophy with his whole heart and mind. But the
problems which he posed were such as Greek philosophy had
never considered. They were, properly speaking, religious
problems. Hence his effort to adapt Greek philosophy to
points o f view which were foreign to it, resulting in a pro­
found transformation o f Hellenism and a constraint imposed
on Greek philosophy to make it say what it was perhaps not
capable o f saying.
6 Arthur Richter, Neuplatonische Studien (Halle: H. W . Schmidt,
1861-67).
7 Hermann Friedrich M üller, “ Orientalisches bei Plotinos?” Hermes,
1914, p. 70.

19
 THE ENNEADS

It is impossible to interpret the thought

o f a philosopher accurately without taking into account the
literary form o f his works. The literary form bears witness
to the intentions o f an author. These vary widely, depending
upon whether he is writing a series o f lectures, a dogmatic
exposition, an essay, or a casual work, as a letter or a polemi­
cal piece. And this must be borne in mind in order to com­
prehend, in all their import, the ideas which he expresses.
This is why I shall first examine the Enneads, the writings
in which Plotinus recorded his thought.
The Enneads are composed o f fifty-four treatises, o f very
unequal length, divided into six groups o f nine each. These
groups are arranged in a systematic order. The first deals
with man and moral philosophy, the second and the third
with the sensible world and with Providence, the fourth with
the Soul, the fifth with Intelligence, the sixth with the One
or the Good. There is in this order a design which is ob­
viously didactic. It consists in setting out from the self (i) and
from the sensible world (ii and iii) in order to rise, by a
gradual ascent, to the originating principle o f the world
which is the Soul (iv), then to the principle o f the Soul which
is Intelligence (v), and finally to the universal principle o f all
things which is the One or the Good (vi).

20
 The “ Enneads'*

But this progression is only an appearance. In spite o f

their titles, the writings o f each group deal in general with
all the questions mentioned or at least presuppose knowledge
o f the whole doctrine. The Enneads o f Plotinus offer in this
respect a complete contrast to the later productions o f the
Neoplatonic school, the works o f professors disciplined by a
long academic tradition. Such a work is found in the Manual
of Theology by Proclus, in which all subjects are treated in
perfect order.
We know, in fact, that the systematic grouping o f the
treatises is due to Porphyry, the faithful secretary o f Plotinus
who, after the death o f his master, arranged and titled them
for publication.1 We must then disregard this grouping in
order to understand him.
But thanks to the Life of Plotinus written by Porphyry, we
know rather precisely the chronological order o f the writings
and their history. We know that Plotinus did not decide to
write until very late, at the age o f fifty-one, in 255, after he
had taught for ten years in Rome. At the age o f fifty-nine,
in 263, when Porphyry entered into close relationship with
him, he had written twenty-one treatises. He wrote twenty-
four o f them from 263 to 268, during the sojourn o f Por­
phyry at Rome, and nine from 268 until his death in 270.2
Thus these writings, o f which Porphyry gives us the
chronological list,3 were done by a teacher who was already

1 Porphyry Life o f Plotinus 4, 24; “ Vie de Plotin,” Plotiny Enneades (“ C o l­

lection Guillaume Bude” ), V ol. I. (All subsequent references to chapters
from the Life refer to this edition.)

9Life o f Plotinus 3 ,4 .

3 The accuracy o f this list is confirmed by the w ay in which the treatises

refer to one another. C f. on this subject Gollwitzer, “ Die Reihenfolge der
Schriften Plotins,” Blätterfü r das Gymnasialschulwesen, Vol. II, Part X X X V I
(1900).

21
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

well known and whose doctrine had attained full maturity.

Besides, these writings were so closely related to his teaching
that we cannot interpret them without considering what his
teaching was like.4

Plotinus was not a professional teacher.

His lectures were open to the public and were free.5 More­
over, he had around him a circle o f wealthy friends who at­
tended to his needs. As a trusted counselor o f the emperor
Gallienus,6 as the spiritual guide o f several aristocratic per­
sonages, he led the life o f so many o f those sages who, in the
Greco-Roman world, played such a fruitful moral role.7
People intrusted to him the guardianship o f many orphans,8
and they had confidence especially in the way in which he
judged men.9
Indeed, the audiences to which he addressed himself and
for which he wrote were, most o f the time, composed o f ma­
ture men trained in philosophy who, moreover, before at­
tending his lectures, had received philosophical or religious
guidance different from his. Thus, he welcomed some Chris­
tian Gnostics as friends (ii. 9. 10. 3). His two most beloved
disciples were Amelius, who left the school o f Lysimachus
the Stoic, and Porphyry, an Asian from Tyre, who became
acquainted with Plotinus only at the age o f thirty-two, after
he himself had published an important work o f religious
philosophy, The Philosophy of the Oracles.
4 C f. on this point Carl Schmidt, “ Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus
und kirchlichen Christenthum,” Texte und Untersuchungen, ed. Adolph H ar-
nack (Leipzig: J . C . Hinrichs, 19 0 1), V ol. V , Part IV .
5 Life o f Plotinus 1. 13 . 6 Ibid. 12,
7 C f., for example, the portrait which Lucian left o f Demona in the w ork
bearing his name as title.
8 Life o f Plotinus 9. 5-9. 9 Ibid. 1 1 .

22
 The “ Enneads99

Thus most o f his courses consisted o f discussions. “ He per­

mitted,” Porphyry tells us, “people to ask questions, and it
often happened that order was lacking in his school and that
there were idle discussions.”
This free manner was not without its shocking and scan­
dalizing effects upon visiting students used to organized
teaching. Once, Porphyry questioned Plotinus for three days
in order to learn about the union o f the body with the soul.
This procedure gave offense to a certain Thaumasius, an out­
sider visiting the school, who said that “he wished to fix in
writing some central themes developed in discussion and to
hear Plotinus himself, but that he could not approve o f Por­
phyry making replies and putting questions.” “ However,”
Plotinus answered, “ if Porphyry does not indicate by his
questions the difficulties which we have to solve, there will
be nothing to write.” 10
Plotinus’ thought was aroused and became animated only
in discussion. Thus, the class generally began with a reading.
“ In his classes they read the commentaries o f Severus,
Cronius, Numenius, Caius and o f Atticus. They also read
works o f the Peripatetics, namely, those o f Aspasius, Alexan­
der o f Aphrodisias, Adrastus, and others which came to their
attention. Plotinus was quick to grasp what was read, and in
a few words he expounded ideas which were prompted by a
profound meditation.” 11
Thus the listener was deeply involved in the working o f
the master’s thought. The philosophy o f Plotinus, like nearly
all the philosophies o f antiquity, was at first delivered orally.
The work which was undertaken in his school was a collec­
tive enterprise. When Porphyry entered, he was not a little
astonished to hear a thesis supported which agreed but slight-
10 Ibid. 13 . 11 Ibid. 14.

23
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

ly with the orthodox interpretation o f Plato. Plotinus taught,

in effect, that the objects known through intelligence were
not external to it but existed in it. Porphyry wrote a short
treatise against the opinion o f his new master, and “ Plotinus
had Amelius read it to him, and after the latter had read it,
he said to him laughingly; ‘It is your task to clear up these
difficulties which Porphyry has created, for he does not un­
derstand my doctrine clearly!’ Amelius brought forth a
rather large volume in reply to my objections. I replied and
then Amelius wrote again. This third work enabled me
finally to understand the thought o f Plotinus.” 12
His followers joined in the work o f the master in order to
convince the new disciples. Among the latter were some
Christian Gnostics who, in spite o f their presence in the
school o f Plotinus, continued to uphold their completely
anti-Plotinian thesis that the world was the work of a wicked
demiurge. To convince them, he was not content to write
a treatise himself (the ninth o f the second Ennead) but also
bade Amelius and Porphyry to discuss in detail the proofs for
the authenticity o f the alleged revealed books upon which
the Gnostics based their faith.
Thus the school o f Plotinus was above all a circle o f friends
in which the master endeavored to maintain an intense spirit­
ual life. He was, moreover, a demanding friend who desired
unity but who employed only the gentle coercion of argu­
ments. Witness his alarmed surprise when he did not achieve
it: “ I am ashamed to think,” he said to the Gnostics whom
he had not yet convinced, “ that friends who have en­
countered such a doctrine [the creation o f the world by a
wicked demiurge] before becoming our friends still persist
in it—why I do not know” (ii. 9. 10. 3).
12 Ibid. 18.

24
 The “ Enneads”

He was no less exacting in regard to the moral conduct o f

his school. He tried to persuade those o f his wealthy friends
in whom he was most interested to retire from public affairs.
He did not always succeed in this.13 But sometimes it hap­
pened that he succeeded a little too well; witness the story
o f the senator Rogatianus “ who had so detached himself
from the things o f this world that he had given up his
wealth, dismissed his servants, and renounced his titles. . . .
He ate only every other day. . . . Plotinus had a great deal
o f affection for him and spoke in praise o f him, holding him
up as a model for those who desired to become philoso­
phers.” 14

Thus one gets a better understanding of

the character o f the Enneads. They are only the written ac­
counts o f the living discussions o f the school. Plotinus wrote
on the subjects which presented themselves,15 and his books
often give the impression o f a stenographic report. They
were not at all meant for popular religious propaganda but
for the small circle o f the initiate within whose company
they came into being. “ They were communicated,” Por­
phyry tells us, speaking o f the first twenty-one treatises writ­
ten by Plotinus, “ to a small group o f persons. It was not easy
to procure them, and they were passed on with caution,
when the persons who received them were judged to be
worthy.” 16
These treatises were bound up with the very life of the
school. I have given an example o f this in the treatise against
the Gnostics. It was upon the solicitations o f Amelius and

13 C f. Zethus (Life o f Plotinus 7. 20).

14 Ibid. 7. 31-4 6 .
15 Tas ejjLTiTTOvaas virodkaeis, ibid. 4. 16 Ibid.

25
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

Porphyry that he wrote the fourth and fifth treatises o f the

sixth Ennead.I7 Porphyry relates at length under what cir­
cumstances he wrote the fourth treatise o f the third Ennead,
“ Concerning the Daemon which fell to our lot.” 18 But even
when we lack these external references, an attentive reading
o f the Enneads shows us that these treatises refer to class dis­
cussions. Thus the three long treatises (iv. 3, 4, and 5) rela­
tive to the soul are introduced by the declaration: “ it is well
to deal with every difficulty relative to the Soul which ought
to be clarified. Even if we remain in a state o f perplexity, we
shall at least have the benefit o f being acquainted with the
difficulty o f these questions.” Here is an obvious allusion to
a long series o f difficulties accumulated little by little. These
treatises mark the end o f a debate. In the first o f them, more­
over (secs. 1-6), he clearly opposes, on the subject o f the
origin o f souls, a thesis which is Stoic in nature but for which
support was sought from the texts o f Plato. It seems as if
this opinion had been sustained by one o f his disciples.
This is why the doctrine o f Plotinus was not presented
part by part in a series o f treatises. But, somewhat after the
manner o f Leibniz, he expounded in almost every treatise
his entire doctrine from the point o f view o f the subject un­
der consideration.
His particular manner o f composition is similarly ex­
plained. One always senses that the listener is quite near—
that at times he is present and comes forth to ask the master
for explanations. Thus in one passage (iv. 5. 8) Plotinus has
just concluded a discussion on seeing objects at a distance
and then adds: “ Is this sufficient? Then the demonstration is
complete. No? Let us then seek further proofs.” Such par­
ticipations on the part o f his students were frequent. A long
17 Ibid. 5. 7. 18 Ibid. 12.

26
 The “ Enneads”

digression on numbers (v. 5. 5) was followed by the state­

ment: “ But we are requested to return to our subject,”
which sounds like a charitable admonition o f the students to
the professor who was digressing. Sometimes, indeed, one
sees the student is a bit impatient with the transcendent ideal­
ism o f the master and in attempting to call him back to
earth says: “ You turn everything upside down with your
high-flown terms! You say: life is good, Intelligence is good.
But why is Intelligence good? How can you say that he who
thinks the ideas possesses the Good through this contempla­
tion? Seduced by the pleasure o f his contemplation, he mis­
takenly says that it is good, as he would be mistaken in say­
ing that life is good. It is good only if it gives pleasure.”
It is passages like these which bring the Enneads to life and
which enable us to hear the echo o f Plotinus’ very teaching
voice.
Reduced to its simplest plan, a treatise o f Plotinus is usually
divided as follows: first, the aporia in which the question to
be solved is stated; then the demonstration which proceeds
dialectically; then the persuasion which endeavors to carry
conviction; finally, in conclusion, a sort o f exaltation or
hymn which proclaims the blessedness o f having obtained
access to the intelligible world. There is nothing, moreover,
in this plan which is rigidly systematic, nothing that is fixed
once and for all.
The aporia consists generally o f a traditional question of
the philosophical schools, for example, What is man (i. 1)?,
or the old Stoic paradox, whether happiness increases with
time (i. 5), or, again, a trite physical question such as, How
do we see at a distance (iv. 5)? The aporia may also consist
o f a difficulty about the meaning o f a passage in Plato or in
Aristotle. For example, the treatise on the virtues (i. 2) is an

27
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

interpretation o f the Platonic formula: “ Virtue is resem­

blance to God.” The treatise on evil (i. 8) is first o f all the
exegesis o f a difficult text o f the Theaetetus. Other treatises
study the meaning o f Aristotelian notions that had become
current in philosophy, as, for example, the notions o f poten­
tiality and actuality (ii. 5) or that o f “ the thought o f thought”
(v - 3 )-
The dialectical demonstration is a genuine dialogue. It is
composed o f a series o f questions and answers which follow
rapidly upon each other. The objection is often indicated by
a simple phrase only, and sometimes one finds it difficult to
follow the continual exchange o f questions and answers.
The Bouillet translation,19 which possesses merit in so many
respects for having opened up the way, still does not give as
often as it should the sense o f this rapid alternation between
the opponent and the master. Here is an example o f such di­
alectic. I refer to that highly paradoxical thesis o f Plotinus
which maintains that the supreme principle, the One, is en­
dowed neither with thought nor with knowledge. The dis­
cussion becomes lively: “ What! It will know neither itself
nor other things?—No, it will remain immovable in its maj­
esty. Other things are subsequent to it. . . . But what about
Providence?20—It is sufficient that the One exist, since from
it all things proceed. . . . What relationship does it have to
itself if it does not think itself?—It will remain immovable
in its majesty” (vi. 7. 39).
But Plotinus, an expert judge o f men, is aware o f the
need not only to demonstrate to the satisfaction o f the
19 Les Enneades de Plotin, trans. M . P. Bouillet (3 vols.; Paris: Hachette,
1857 ).
20 That is to say, is not the fact o f Providence p ro o f that God concerns
H im self with things which are external to Him?

28
 The “ Enneads99

mind but to convince and to win over the heart: “ We

must,” he declares several times, “ combine conviction with
the compelling force o f demonstrations” (ibid. 40, among
others). Because he feels so keenly that man’s spiritual life
cannot be reduced to one o f pure intelligence, he is un­
willing to limit himself to mere demonstration. “ There
we have a demonstration,” he says in one o f his treatises,
“ but are we thoroughly persuaded? Demonstration com­
ports necessity but not conviction. Necessity belongs to
Intelligence, persuasion to the Soul. So it appears we try
much more to convince ourselves than to contemplate
the truth in pure intelligence. As long as we were above, in
Intelligence, we were satisfied with reasoning.. . . But once
descended here below into the soul, we search for means o f
persuading ourselves, as if we wished to see a model in its
image” (v. 3.6). Sometimes Plotinus moves rather far in this
direction, and granting that he proves himself to be suffi­
ciently restrained, he still comes dangerously close to intro­
ducing into philosophy any argument which possesses the
power o f seductive persuasion. Witness the following pas­
sage in which spiritual demonstration gives way to some­
thing which borders upon a spiritualistic experience. Having
given the proofs for the immortality o f the soul, he adds:
“ We have said what those who ask for a demonstration re­
quire. As for those who seek a sensible proof, we must draw
on the numerous traditions concerning this subject, the
oracles o f the Gods ordering us to appease the anger o f the
souls which we have wronged, to render honor to the dead.
. . . Many souls which existed previously in men do not
cease to do good to men; they are helpful in informing us
concerning all things through oracles” (iv. 7. 15).
Finally, the arguments culminate in what we have called

29
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

states o f exaltation, kinds o f inner meditations, in which his

style becomes fuller and which describe the peaceful state o f
the soul which has finally arrived at the truth (e.g., vi. 9 at
the end).
These thoughts are expressed in a style which has been
much criticized, and which is, as a matter o f fact, at times
careless, obscure, and faulty. (We know, moreover, that
Porphyry was given the task o f correcting the errors in these
works, which were written very rapidly and without re­
vision.) It is nonetheless true that in spite o f all these short­
comings the style o f Plotinus is one o f the most beautiful we
have because it always expresses the movement o f a living
thought. Its development often flowers into brilliant images.
The image, in Plotinus, is not an external ornament but an
integral element o f the thought. He aspires, in feet, as he often
remarks, to give utterance to realities which language is
powerless to convey. The alternative left is to suggest them
through analogy.
Some o f these images are merely ingenious and beautiful,
as is the parable o f the master o f the house by which Plotinus
expresses the state o f the soul which leaves intelligence be­
hind in order to contemplate the supreme principle. “ Thus,
a man who has entered a lavishly furnished house gazes about
and admires all those objects o f value before having seen the
master o f the house. But as soon as he sees the master and de­
lights in him who is not a lifeless statue, he leaves everything
else to gaze upon him only” (vi. 7. 35).
The same is true about the parable o f the great king, in
which the states o f the soul progressing through the intelli­
gible world are described. “ Before the great king there move
forward, in his retinue, first the lesser personages, then men
still higher in rank, then those who come closer to the king

30
 The “ Enneads”

and have more royal functions, finally those who possess the
highest honors after him. After all o f these the great king
himself suddenly appears. The persons present supplicate and
adore him . . . if they have not already departed, content to
have witnessed the procession o f the attendants” (v. 5. 3).
But the really Plotinian image which truly reveals his
genius is a dynamic and impelling image which forces the
soul to think o f the immaterial through a series o f changes
effected in the image as first given. Thus, in order to show us
how one and the same being may be everywhere at once, he
employs the following image among others: “ The hand may
hold a body completely, an object o f several cubits’ length,
and other bodies at the same time. Its power extends to all
these bodies, and yet this power is not divided, in the hand,
into parts equal to the bodies it holds. Although this power
extends to the extremities o f these bodies, the hand itself re­
mains within the limits o f its own dimensions and does not
extend into the bodies which it supports. Moreover, if one
adds another body to these, and if the hand is capable o f sup­
porting the whole, its power extends to this new body with­
out being divided into as many parts as the body possesses.
N ow let us eliminate the corporeal mass o f the hand, retain­
ing the power which sustains all these bodies and which first
sustains the hand itself. . . . Would not one and the same in­
divisible power be in this assemblage o f bodies and in the
same manner in each part?” (vi. 4. 7; cf. also the following
paragraph). Thus the image, through suitable modifications,
so closely approximates the idea that it tends to become a
direct and immediate vision o f it.

31
 THE FUNDAMENTAL

m PROBLEM

PHILOSOPHY

PLOTINUS
IN THE

OF

All interpreters agree in recognizing in

Plotinus the coexistence o f two orders o f questions: first, the
religious problem concerning the destiny o f the soul and the
means o f restoring it to its pristine state; and second, the
philosophic problem o f the structure and rational explana­
tion o f reality. But the interpretations differ concerning the
relation between these two problems, i f one were to read
only the account o f Zeller, in Volume III o f Die Philosophie
der Griechen, the rational explanation o f reality would appear
as the real aim o f Plotinus, and the conception which he
forms o f the destiny o f the soul a mere corollary rendered
possible through his philosophical theory.
N ow the characteristic feature o f Plotinus’ system appears
to me to be the close union o f these two problems—indeed,
such a union that it is impossible to know which is subordi­
nated to the other. To discover the principle o f things, which
is the goal o f philosophical research, is at the same time for
Plotinus the “ end o f the journey,” namely, the fulfilment o f
destiny. “ What is the method and the discipline which will
lead us where we must go? Where must we go? It is to the
Good and to the first principle. This is what we take for

32
 The Fundamental Problem

granted. And the demonstrations o f the Good which we give are

also the means o f raising ourselves to it” (i. 3. 1).
In order to point out the significance and the exact import
o f this thesis, we must first dwell upon the point o f departure
in the speculation o f Plotinus.This point o f departure is a
feeling o f uneasiness, the feeling that human life in its present
state is a life arrested or weakened by obstacles due to the
body and its passions. “ The human soul, placed in the body,
is subject to evil and suffering. It lives in sorrow, desire, fear,
and all forms o f evil. The body is for the soul a prison and
a tomb; the world, its cave or cavern” (iv. 8. 3).
This continual feeling o f dethronement is in painful con­
flict with the feeling that the real nature o f the soul consists
in being impassive and independent. Through personal ex­
perience, men, at any rate the best, “ those who possess the
soul o f a lover, a musician, or a philosopher,” are acquainted
with certain states o f fulness and happiness, associated espe­
cially with pure intellectual contemplation. These states ap­
pear to possess more o f the essence, o f the nature o f the soul.
In them the soul is more purely itself.
From the foregoing arises the conception so frequently ex­
pressed in Plotinus, that evil and vice are “ not in any way the
suppression o f something that the soul possesses, but the addi­
tion o f an element which is foreign to it, as phlegm or bile in
the body” (i. 8. 14. 23). The soul is like a bit o f pure gold
covered with dirt, “ impure, carried away in one direction
then another by the attraction o f the obiects o f sense . . . con­
taining a great deal which is material. . . it is changed
through intermingling with what is inferior. It is like a man
who is plunged into the mire and no longer displays the
beauty which he possessed but only the mud with which he
is covered. His ugliness is due to the addition o f a foreign

33
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

element, and to become beautiful again it will be quite an

undertaking for him to cleanse himself in order to become
what he was.”
How then is such a fall possible, since it is not due to the
very nature o f the fallen being? “ Often,” says Plotinus, “ I
escape from my body and awake to myself. Turning away
from all other things, I behold a marvelous beauty within the
inward parts o f my self. I am then satisfied that I possess the
best part. . . . But after this repose in the divine being I de­
scend again from Intelligence to reflective thought, and I ask
how this descent actually takes place and how such a being
as the Soul has entered the body, the Soul which appears to
exist in itself, although it is in a body” (iv. 8. i).
Thus the soul may be animated by a double movement:
an ascending movement which is at the same time a peaceful
inner contemplation, a renewal o f itself, an escape from the
body; and a movement o f descent which plunges it into the
body, into life and into forgetfulness o f its real nature.
In order to understand the nature o f this feeling and its
consequences in the formulation o f a system o f the world, we
must lay aside the works o f Plotinus for the moment and ob­
serve the extent o f the reign o f its influence. A religious senti­
ment, however personal it may be, possesses vigor only if it
is reinforced by a social medium and shared.
N ow the “ mystery religions” during the first centuries o f
our era were based upon a quite similar sentiment which
held that the soul was bound to elements which rendered it
impure. The proper function o f religion consists then in de­
livering it, in enabling it to be reborn, by disentangling it
from these elements. Such is the underlying idea common to
these religions o f salvation studied in so penetrating a fashion
by Cumont and Reitzenstein. “ ‘For the initiate/ says Apu-

34
 The Fundamental Problem

leius, in speaking o f the mysteries o f Isis, ‘the old life is

ended, the goddess summons from the threshold o f the
nether world whoever is worthy o f them, and she establishes
him in a new life, that o f salvation.’ ” x The same concep­
tion that religion will enable us, through the renewal o f
ourselves, to possess a new and freed personality, dominates
the Hermetic writings. “ After this rebirth one remains the
same, and yet one does not have the same substance. The
sensible body has nothing to do with the birth in Truth. . . .
It is the death o f the terrestrial body, at least in its power over
the soul. The twelve wicked inclinations which are born o f
the body disappear one after another, driven off by the ten
divine forces. Then you know yourself with an intellectual
knowledge and you know our father.” 2
These transformations o f the soul appear to us as mere
changes o f internal states. But this could not be the case for
the Hellenic imagination, which had a far too concrete con­
ception o f the soul not to imagine an inward transformation
as a change o f actual place, a passage from one place into an­
other. The ascent and descent o f the soul became a journey
across the world. The feeling o f the soul’s diverse states o f
purity or impurity was inevitably coupled with a myth in
which there was introduced, as part o f the drama o f destiny,
the representation o f the regions o f the universe across which
the soul was transported in its changes.
Plato furnished the model for this kind o f mythical image,
and, in the Republic, the Phaedo, and the Phaedrus, had told
about the journeys o f the soul through the world, its life
with the gods on the convex side o f the celestial vault, then
1 Sec Richard Reitzenstein, D ie hellenistiche Mysterienreligionen (Leipzig
and Berlin: B . G . Teubner, 19 10 ), p. 116 .
2 Ibid., p. 33.

35
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

the loss o f its wings and its fall into the body. In highly fanci­
ful stories which are very far from the heavy seriousness o f
the mystery religions, he had, nevertheless, introduced the
idea o f a kind o f religious topography. According to his con­
ception, the areas o f the universe were divided into the cate­
gories o f the sacred and the profane. Each o f them, according
to its purity or impurity, was adapted to a degree determined
by the perfection o f the soul, and the soul was at home in
different places according to the stage to which it had at­
tained.
But in Plato this mythical representation o f the universe
had only a rather loose connection with science; and what­
ever may be the position that one takes with regard to the
much debated question concerning the significance o f the
myths in Plato, we do not meet with the heart o f his philo­
sophic thought in them.3
In the theologians who lived toward the close o f the pagan
era, however, myth which was no longer counterbalanced
by science, or rather which absorbed what remained o f the
cosmology o f the ancients, came to prevail. Religious
topography invaded every field, and the whole world was
viewed solely from the religious point o f view. The world
was intended simply to serve as the stage o f human destiny.
Beginning with the existing state o f the soul, physical
realities were ordered in a series o f ascending or descending
values. On one side were the spheres o f the planets, above
these the sphere o f the fixed stars, and still higher the invisible
God. On the other side was the increasing darkness o f matter,
actual Hades. Cosmology placed itself at the disposal o f
3 These lines were written before reading the interesting w ork by Paul
Elm er M ore, The Religion o f Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
19 2 1), which gives the myths a quite new importance.

36
 The Fundamental Problem

myth. The old mythical representations o f the sojourn o f

the happy or unhappy souls were fitted into a system o f the
world. Observe, for example, how Numenius, a Neopla-
tonist o f the second century, interpreted the myth o f the
tenth book o f the Republic and how he specified, with the
heaviness o f a theologian, the features that the poetry o f
Plato had left to the imagination o f the reader.4 The seat o f
judgment becomes the center o f the world; the Platonic
heaven becomes the sphere o f the fixed stars; the “ under­
ground place” where souls are punished, the planets; the
“ mouth o f heaven,” through which souls descended at birth,
is the tropic o f Cancer; and it is through Capricorn that they
reascend.
The Mythraic theologians likewise blended their mysteries
with cosmological representations. After death the soul, if
judged worthy, ascends into the heavens. The heavens are
divided into seven spheres, each o f which is assigned to a
planet; they are closed by doors, and each is guarded by an
angel who admits only the initiated who have learned the ap­
propriate formulas. At each door the soul casts off, like gar­
ments, the faculties which it had received when it descended
to earth. It relinquishes its nutritive energies to the moon, its
lust to Mercury, amorous desires to Venus, martial ardor to
Mars, ambition to Jupiter, sloth to Saturn; and thus stripped
o f all sensibility, it enters the eighth heaven where it enjoys
blessedness forever.5
Indeed, a strange conception o f things, which, in spite o f

4 Proclus In rempublicam, ecL W ilhelm K roll (Leipzig: B . G . Teubner,

18 9 9 -19 0 1), ii. 96. 1 1 .
5 Franz Cum ont, Les mystères de Mithra, pp. 11 4 ff. (translated by Thom ­
as J . M cCorm ack, The Mysteries o f Mithra [Chicago: Open Court Publish­
ing C o., 1902]).

37
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

the rational astronomical theories that it implies, reminds us

o f the most primitive forms o f intelligence ! Every force is o f
a religious nature. There is nothing mechanical in this uni­
verse. There are only mystic contacts which are either for­
tunate or calamitous for the soul.
The mystery religions have no other purpose but to pre­
pare the soul for this journey. They seek to instruct their
followers how to proceed to a higher region, in order to end
in the final union with the deity. This explains the mysterious
ceremonial which, in the initiation, reproduces symbolically
the story o f the psyche. The accounts o f the mysteries o f
Mithra show us that it was the custom in these ceremonies to
clothe or to divest the initiate o f vestments, which repre­
sented the faculties whose attachment to the soul renders it
impure. Thus in the mysteries described by Apuleius,6 in the
nocturnal initiation the initiate would put on twelve garbs in
succession. In the morning he finally put on the “ celestial
garb,” and he was honored as a god by the whole society.7
I mention these puerilities for the sake o f indicating how,
in these religions, the inner life and religious fervor were in­
separable from a representation o f the universe and from a
cult which represented materially the diverse stages o f the
life o f the soul. This cult had to have every stage, from the

6 C f. Reitzenstein, op. cit., pp. 26-30.

7 C f. the important w ork o f Cum ont, Le culte égyptien et le mysticism de
Plotin (“ Monuments et mémoires publiés par l’Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres’* [Paris: Leroux, 19 2 1-2 2 ]), pp. 1 - 1 6 , in which the details
which indicate knowledge o f the Egyptian mysteries in Plotinus are under­
lined in a precise w ay; particularly (p. 1 1 ) , the expression “ alone with the
alone’ * (/xous 7rpos /ibvov) refers to a practice in initiation. T hey shut
up the initiate in a solitary room in which God appeared to him. It desig­
nates in Plotinus (for example, i. 6 .7 ) the relation o f the Soul with the One.

3*
 The Fundamental Problem

most refined spiritualism, inner peaceful contemplation,

moral purity, down to mechanical rites and formulas learned
by heart.

It would be impossible to understand

anything in Plotinus if we failed to see that his system stands
out against this background o f religious ideas. As his point
o f departure was the same as that o f the religions o f his time,
Plotinus asserts, as they do, an intimate union between the
inner life, the conception o f the universe and the practices
o f purification. Their language was also his. In his repre­
sentation o f the universe there is no reality not affected by a
factor representing religious value and which is not con­
sidered an abode for the soul rising toward the first principle
or descending toward matter. The universe is divided into
two parts, one into which the soul ascends and one into
which the soul descends. “ In our inquiries concerning the
soul,” he says, “ we have divided things into the sensible and
the intelligible, and we have placed the soul among the in­
telligible things” (iv. i. 2. 7-9). There is a “ here” (¿pradOa),
where the soul which has become impure resides, opposed
to a “ there” (cm), whither the soul aspires to return. It is
in accordance with religious considerations that he classified
things. In him, as in Marcus Aurelius, the word (e/cet) de­
notes that higher world from which souls come and to which
they are to return.
More specifically, Plotinus frequently employed the sym­
bolism and terminology o f the mysteries. In a passage which
recalls the rites o f initiation described by Apuleius, he says:
“ Those alone obtain the contemplation o f the Good who
turn toward it and divest themselves o f the vestments which

39
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

they put on in their descent, just as those who ascend to the

sanctuary o f a temple must purify themselves, laying aside
the old vestments and ascending there disrobed.” And the
mysterious nature o f the vision o f the Good is expressed even
better in the following passage: “ How may we see the
marvelous Beauty which dwells, so to speak, in the inner
part o f the sanctuary and which does not appear on the out­
side, so that no profane person may see it?” (i. 6. 7, 8). In an
interesting article, Cochez, analyzing a passage o f the Enneads
(vi. 9. 10 - 11) ,8 has succeeded in showing that Plotinus was
not merely indicating some general characteristics o f the
mysteries (the law o f secrecy, initiation, the mystic signifi­
cance o f rites) but was pointing to certain very definite
mysteries. The mysteries o f which he speaks, in which the
initiate is united not with an image o f the deity but with
deity itself, and in which the initiate passes through an aisle
lined with statues before entering the sanctuary, and through
which he passes again in leaving, must be the Isiac mysteries,
celebrated at Rome in the Isaeum o f the Campus Martius.
We know that this temple had an aisle o f beautiful statues
leading up to the sanctuary, and what Apuleius tells us o f the
Isaic mysteries indicates that the initiation ended, as in Plo­
tinus, not with the vision o f a divine image, but with the
vision o f a light.
However profoundly the thought and style o f Plotinus
may show the imprint o f this particular devotion to the
mysteries, must we see in him merely a theologian devoted
to the “ rites o f initiation” ? To answer this in the negative,
we only need to read what recent historians o f the religions
existing at the close o f the pagan era think o f Neoplatonism.
Strictly speaking, Neoplatonism does not seem to them to
8 Revue neo-scholastique, 1 9 1 1 , p. 329.

40
 The Fundamental Problem

enter within the compass o f their studies, and at times Plo­

tinus is reproached for having mixed philosophic and re­
ligious thought indiscriminately. In his book on primitive
Christianity, Guignebert has lately given the reasons why
Neoplatonism had little success in, and exerted limited in­
fluence upon, the religious movement.
N ow it is precisely this complex character o f Neoplatonism
which interests us. Spinozism too, perhaps, does not occupy
a prominent place in the history o f religions, but it certainly
possesses a place o f very great importance in religious thought.
This complex and possibly vague character o f the system
o f Plotinus results from the fact that it contains a philosophic
representation along with the religious representation o f the
universe. On the one hand, the universe is divided into the
categories o f the sacred and the profane. But, on the other
hand, there is a rational connection between the forms o f
reality from consequence to principle; the universe has a
meaning for reason. According to an ingenious remark o f
Inge, there is an inevitable conflict between these two con­
ceptions, since the first presents reality as a hierarchy o f
values which register a positive or negative sign according to
whether the soul is purified or becomes impure through con­
tact with them. According to the second conception, on the
contrary, the series o f realities linked by a tie intelligible to
reason retains the same value everywhere and, so to speak,
the same rights.
This conflict enables us to understand more definitely the
fundamental problem which occupied the thought o f Ploti­
nus and from which we shall see all the rest proceeding. The
problem is: Can rationalism have a religious significance?
How can the soul exist, so to speak, in its own right? How
can the problem o f destiny retain a meaning in a universe the
THE PHILOSOPHY Of PLOTINUS

forms o f which are graduated according to a necessary law

o f reason? The position o f Plotinus with regard to Greek
rationalism is analogous to that o f Spinoza to Cartesianism.
Spinoza, too, endeavored to solve the problem o f eternal life
and blessedness within a thoroughgoing and unreserved ra­
tionalism.
Plotinus must be classed with the thinkers who have tried
to go beyond the conflict, I will not say between reason and
faith (for in this form it depends upon historic circumstances
yet to arise), but a conflict o f a much more general order,
the conflict between a religious representation o f the uni­
verse, that is to say, a representation which gives meaning
to our destiny, and a rationalistic representation which
seems to do away with all meaning in anything like the in­
dividual destiny o f the soul. It is because o f his statement o f
the problem that Plotinus remains one o f the most important
masters in the history o f philosophy.
In order to go beyond this conflict, he had to elaborate
upon and transform conceptions which appeared opposed in
their incomplete form. All the inquiries o f Plotinus, I shall
endeavor to show, lead back to this process o f elaboration in
which he took Plato as a guide. I shall indicate the outline
briefly. On the one hand, he transforms the mythical image
o f the destiny o f the soul. What appears in the myth as a se­
ries o f events, localized in different places, tends to become in
him a series o f necessary advances embodied in the rational
structure o f the universe. On the other hand, going in the
opposite direction, he transforms the notion o f knowledge.
Knowledge becomes for him an inner concentration, and
stress is put much less upon the objects o f knowledge than
upon the modifications o f the soul which result from its
ascent across the intelligible world.

42
 IV TH E PROCESSION

We find in Plotinus a twofold represen­

tation o f reality. On the one hand, there is a representation
related to the myth o f the soul. The universe is divided into
pure or impure abodes through which the soul ascends or
descends, and the inner life o f the soul is one with the locality
which it inhabits. On the other hand, the universe appears
as a series o f forms each o f which depends hierarchically on
the preceding, and the universe can be the object o f rational
thought. The motivating force o f Plotinus’ thought is the
desire to establish the basic identity o f these two representa­
tions. It consists, therefore, in affirming the religious sig­
nificance o f rationalism.

This thesis may be clarified through the

study o f the theory o f the procession o f the “ hypostases” in
Plotinus. The term procession indicates the way in which the
forms o f reality depend upon each other. The idea which it
evokes is comparable, for its generality and its historical
importance, to the present-day conception o f evolution.
Toward the close o f antiquity and during the Middle Ages,
men considered things under the category o f procession, as
those o f the nineteenth and twentieth centuries think o f them
under the category o f evolution.

43
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

In order that this idea may be fully understood, I shall be­

gin with an observation too often neglected in the study o f
Plotinus. Plotinian metaphysics is centered entirely in a cer­
tain astronomical theory o f the sensible world, a theory
which had its origin in the speculations o f Eudoxus in the
fifth century and which had established itself through the
course o f the centuries. It is the geocentric conception in
which the heavens are formed by concentric spheres. The
sphere which possesses the greatest radius supports the fixed
stars; those o f smaller radii each support a planet. We are
able to form not only an abstract representation o f this
limited world but to have a very definite mental picture as
well. The regularity and periodicity o f the movement o f the
spheres render the temporal process o f the world equally
comprehensible by reason. Such a world is eternal, and its
periods succeed each other endlessly, one repeating the other.
Plotinus and all the pagan Neoplatonists were very greatly
attached to this conception o f the world. Not only did Plo­
tinus write a special treatise defending it (ii. i) but he never
missed an opportunity to affirm it against the contrary views
o f the Gnostics or the Stoics. The thesis o f the eternity o f the
world forms an essential and permanent trait o f what is
called Hellenism, in opposition to Christianity. It became,
after Plotinus, the subject o f the liveliest debates between
pagans and Christians. Moreover, the conflict took the form
o f a question o f exegesis, as almost always happened during
this period. The problem was to determine what Plato’s
opinion was in the Timaeus and whether in giving an ac­
count o f the origin o f the world he had attempted to give it
an origin in time or whether, on the contrary, he had clothed
his cosmogony in the form o f a story merely for the purposes
o f exposition.

44
 The Procession

N ow two results followed from this representation o f the

world: first, a certain way o f conceiving the principles o f the
world; in the next place, a certain manner o f representing
the relations of these principles to each other and to the
sensible world.
Let us turn to the principles first. The sensible world is a
certain order realized in space and in matter. The principle
of this world can only be an absolutely fixed intellectual or­
der, containing, in an eternal form and accessible to pure in­
telligence, the relationships and harmonies which are per­
ceived in the sensible world. Such is indeed, in reality, the
central hypostasis o f the metaphysics o f Plotinus, namely, In­
telligence. Intelligence is above all an order or an intelligible
world. “ Yonder there is a sky which is a living being. It is
then not deprived o f what we call stars. . . . Yonder there is
also an earth which is not uninhabited but much more alive
than ours. It contains all the living creatures which are in this
world, as well as plants which possess life. There is yonder a
sea, a universal water whose flux and life remain constant
. . . air is also a part o f this intelligible world, as are the living
creatures o f the air which belong to it” (vi. 7. 12).
Intelligence or the intelligible world is then none other
than the very knowledge o f the sensible world, realized in a
hypostasis. This knowledge must be posited as a thing prior
to the sensible world which is its imitation. If, indeed, the
rational contrivances o f the sensible world are not to be the
result o f a chance meeting, o f a awrvxia, reason in its unity
must be logically prior to this world.
But above this multiple unity, which constitutes the in­
telligible world, we must posit, for the same reason, the abso­
lute One without distinction and without variety. “ What is,
in fact, the cause o f the existence [of the intelligible beings]

45
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

and o f their multiplicity? For number is not first. Prior to

the number two there is unity.” The unity o f an order is
then a reality higher and anterior to the order itself and is
that from which the order proceeds. The One, superior to
the intelligible world, is the “ Source” or “ The First.”
On the other hand, below the intelligible world another
hypostasis is required. For the realization o f order in matter
and for the creation o f a sensible world, an intermediary be­
ing is required which is active and mobile, extending be­
tween Intelligence and matter in so far as the latter is capable
o f receiving it. This third hypostasis is Soul.
Hence arises the famous system o f the three hypostases
modeled upon the astronomical system which influenced
Plotinus so much. At the summit, the One, from which pro­
ceeds Intelligence. From Intelligence, in its turn, proceeds
Soul. Each o f these stages o f reality contains all things (all
things which in space will be separated), but in various de­
grees o f complexity. The One includes everything without
any distinction. Intelligence contains all beings; but if they
are distinct therein, they are nonetheless unified, and each o f
them contains all others potentially. In Soul, things tend to be
distinguished from each other, until at the border line they
are dissipated and scattered into the sensible world.
A second consequence o f the close connection between
Plotinus* metaphysics and his astronomic system is his con­
ception o f the relation o f the hypostases to themselves and
to the sensible world. Being primarily principles o f cosmo­
logical explanation, they are strictly adapted to this end.
They comprise only what is necessary and sufficient to ex­
plain the world. Therefore, there is no arbitrary relation be­
tween them and no relation o f voluntariness in regard to
each other. The effect arises necessarily from its principle. The

46
 The Procession

necessity o f cosmic events is extended to the things which are

their principles.
It follows that the development according to which a hy­
postasis arises from another has a permanent, fixed, and eter­
nal character. The succession in which we consider the hy­
postases is merely an order required for exposition, a logical
order, not a temporal one. “ Since we are dealing with eter­
nal realities, we must not let the temporal process constitute
a difficulty. It is in word only that we attribute temporal
process to these realities, in order to express their causal bond
and their order” (v. i. 6). How could there be a will to
choose, foresight, deliberation in the hypostasis which pro­
duces the lower hypostasis, since the end o f its action is fixed?
“ Foresight aims that one event rather than another shall
come to pass. It fears, in a way, the contrary outcome. But
where there is only one outcome, there is noforesight. Reasoning,
for its part, focuses on one o f two terms o f an alternative.
But if there is only one, why reason? How could that which
is alone, single, and proceeds in a single way allow the choice
o f one end to the exclusion o f another” (vi. 7. 1)?
I f everything proceeds with necessity, it follows also that
every possible effect will be realized, and that in Plotinus, as
in Spinoza, the real will be identical with the possible. “ The
antecedent term cannot immobilize its power and, through
jealousy, limit its effects; this power must keep proceeding
through the whole realm o f the possible, until all its effects
reach the lowest o f beings” (iv. 8. 6).

In its general outline, such is the system

o f the three hypostases. W e have now to consider it under a
completely different aspect. As I have expounded the system,
a disputed question is left unsolved which was stated with

47
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

singular precision as early as the fifth century by Greek phi­

losophy and which Plotinus had the ambition to take up and
to offer a solution to. In assuming that the sensible world
exists, he discovered, indeed, its explanation in the intelligible
world. The intelligible world, in its turn, granting its exist­
ence, is explained by the One. But why should the lower
stages o f reality exist? W hy did the One not remain in its
solitude, and why did it give birth to an intelligible world,
and the intelligible world to a soul? Why, in short, do the
many proceed from the One? Such is the question which the
“ ancient philosophers’* addressed to themselves, always
haunted by the paradox o f the father o f Greek rationalism,
Parmenides, who purely and simply abolished the many.
For the solution o f this question, Plotinus found very little
help in Plato. The progressive synthesis o f reality in Plato, as
he is known to us and as he was known to Plotinus* is de­
scribed only in mythical terms. Plato asked, “ W hy did the
being who formed the world form it? It was because he is
good; and a good being never has any jealousy.” 1 But this
appeal to sentiment is far from being a rational explanation,
and Plotinus found no other.
Consequently, the solution which he himself gives is ex­
pressed only through the use o f images, whose very beauty
and variety cause us to feel that the reality which he wished to
lay hold upon escapes every conceptual formula.
The following are some o f the best-known images: “ I f
there is a second term following upon the One . . . how does
it proceed from the One? It is a radiation which proceeds
from the One, which remains unmoved, just as the resplend­
ent light which encircles the sun rises from it, although the
sun is always motionless. All beings, moreover, as long as
‘ Ttmaeus 29 and following.

48
 The Procession

they exist, produce necessarily about themselves, from their

very essence, a reality which spreads outward and depends
upon their power. This reality is like an image o f the beings
from which it arose. Thus fire gives rise to heat, and snow
does not retain all its coldness. Fragrant objects are notable
instances. . . an emanation spreads all around them, a reality
which enriches its surroundings” (v. i. 6).
Or again, the First engenders, like every being which has
attained to its state o f maturity: “ As soon as a being reaches
its point o f perfection we see that it engenders; it cannot en­
dure to remain by itself, so it creates another being. And this
is true not only o f beings endowed with will but also o f vege­
tative and inanimate beings which impart what they can o f
their being. For example, fire gives warmth, snow chills,
poison acts upon another being. In a word, all beings, as
far as they can, imitate the Source in tending to eternity and
goodness. How then could the perfect being, which is the
Good, remain immovable in itself? Is it through envy? Is it
due to impotence on the part o f the being which is the power
in all things? But then how would it be the Source? Some­
thing then must proceed from it” (v. 4. 1).
Finally, Plotinus employs among many others the figure o f
emanation which is the best known o f all: “ Imagine a spring
without any origin. It supplies all the rivers with water. Yet
it is not exhausted for all that. It remains calmly at the same
level, and the rivers which issue from it first interflow before
taking each its own particular course” (iii. 8. 10).
All these images imply the intuition, which certainly can­
not be formulated in concept, o f a certain dynamic current—
o f a “ life” proceeding from an inexhaustible source and be­
coming weaker as it proceeds from its center. Each lower
stage draws from the higher all the power it possesses, o f

49
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

which it imparts something in its turn. This power is a

weakened imitation of the higher stage. The power is con­
tinually being divided and diluted. The One is above all the
‘ power o f all things” ; but it is not any one o f these things.
In Intelligence is realized the multiplicity o f intelligible
things—real beings o f which the One is the power. At the
very bottom, the sensible world contains only reflections of
beings, disseminated into space and separated from each
other.
The driving force o f the procession is thus a spiritual life
which spreads continuously. The conception o f metaphysi­
cal reality is realigned with the inner experience o f the
spiritual life. The series o f the hypostases is not so much a
series o f distinct forms, discontinuous and separate, as it is
the continuous movement o f expanding spiritual life. Plo­
tinus insists a great deal upon this continuity. “ The totality
o f things,” he says, “ is like a single life which extends in a
straight line. Each o f the successive points o f the line is differ­
ent. But the entire line is continuous. It has continuously
different points. But the earlier point does not perish in the
one which follows it” (v. 2 to end).
Metaphysical reality is then spiritual life considered as
existing in and through itself. In the current emanating from
the One, each hypostasis isolates itself and affirms itself
through the spiritual attitude it has toward the preceding
hypostasis. Even more than this, it is this spiritual attitude
itself. The hypostasis arises when the power emanating from
the One, which tends at first to be lost in an indefinite multi­
plicity, collects itself as it were, “ is transformed,” and is thus
determined. The spiritual life consists in a concentration. If
Intelligence proceeds from the One, it is because “ the mul­
tiple (emanated from the One) is in quest o f itself. The mul-

5°
 The Procession

tiple proceeds to concentrate on (avpvevtiv) and to become

aware o f itself. . . . The intellectual act arises because the
Good exists and Intelligence moves toward it and because, in
this movement, Intelligence perceives. To think is to move
toward the Good in desiring it. The desire engenders Intel­
ligence” (v. 6. 5).
Thus the production o f the many by the One has its effi­
cacy, its full meaning and purpose, only in this unification,
this conversion to the One which gives it its reality. The en­
tire procession o f the hypostases takes place between two
limits which are actually the two limits o f the spiritual life
itself. On the one hand, there is the One which corresponds
to its higher state, to absolute undifferentiated unity, in
which thought is freed from every object and, consequently,
is freed from itself. On the other hand, there is the Soul, in
which it tends to be dispersed and multiplies, in order to be
localized in distinct bodies which it is its function to animate.
Metaphysical reality, as conceived by Plotinus, is spiritual
life hypostatized, engulfing everything and endeavoring to
spread itself as far as it can. It sets bounds to itself and dilutes
itself by degrees, “ like an artisan competent to create a great
number o f different objects is limited to the one for which
he has an order, or to the one permitted by the material
upon which he works” (vi. 7. 7).
We see in what sense the many are produced by the One.
Intelligence produced by the One is enriched and made
fruitful through contemplation and meditation, as the mind
o f the arithmetician is what it is only by the progressive in­
tuition o f numbers and o f their properties. In this sense, In­
telligence derives everything it has from the object o f its
contemplation. This object has produced it only because the
object itself remains fixed and immovable before the scrutiny

5*
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

o f the mind. Plotinus is as far removed as it is possible to be

from considering the principle o f things as a creative will.
The system o f Plotinus arises from an effort to interpret all
that is real in things in terms o f spiritual activity. This ac­
tivity is not a reality which is superimposed accidentally and
contingently upon a world already complete. It is the pro­
found reality o f which all others are only degradations.

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 THE SOUL

Authentic reality is, for Plotinus, one sole

spiritual life which proceeds from the One to end in the
sensible world. It is spiritual life hypostatized. Hence comes
the particular form which the philosophical problem takes
in Plotinus. To explain a form o f reality is to ascertain the
exact point at which it inserts itself into the spiritual current.
It consists in reinstating it in this current, in ascertaining both
its distance from the center and the series o f intermediaries
through which it is linked to the center.
However, were each o f the forms included passively in the
spiritual current, as the parts o f a line lie end to end, the
continuity o f the current would indeed still exist for an ex­
ternal observer but no longer for each o f the fragments which
compose it. In order that they may actually participate in the
spiritual life, each form o f reality must expand, so to speak,
or in Plotinian language, “ assimilate itself” to the higher
reality. Continuity would be only a word were it not real­
ized in the inner nature o f each form in the sequence.
Hence the double aspect o f each o f Plotinus’ hypostases
and o f Soul in particular.
On the one hand, the Soul has a particular place in the
chain o f hypostases. “ It is the last o f the intelligible reasons

53
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

and o f the reasons which are in the intelligible world. It is

the first o f those which are in the sensible universe. That is
why it is related to both” (iv. 6. 31). “ It occupies an inter­
mediate rank among beings. Part o f it is divine. But placed
at the lower end o f intelligible reality and on the border o f
sensible nature, it imparts to sensible nature something o f
itself” (iv. 8. 7).
On the other hand, the Soul is the power pervading the
chain o f realities from one end to the other and assimilating
itself to each o f them through a series o f transformations.
“ The Soul has many various powers. It occupies, through
them, the beginning, the middle, and the end o f things” (i. 8.
14). At whatever level it exists, it is always able to ascend to
a higher level o f the spiritual life. This level is for it an ideal
or, in Plotinian language, which is full o f imagery, a daemon.
“ I f we are able to follow the daemon which is above us, we
rise and in so doing we live its life. This daemon to which we
are led becomes the noblest part o f ourselves. . . . After it,
we take another daemon for guide, and so on to the highest.
For the Soul is many things. It is all things, higher as well as
lower, and it extends into every domain o f life. Each one o f
us is an intelligible world. Linked to lower things through
the body, we are related to higher things through the in­
telligible essence o f our being” (iii. 4. 3).
The Soul is then, as Inge says, the wanderer o f the meta­
physical world. It is, for the realistic imagination o f Plotinus,
the very expression o f the continuity that exists between the
lowest forms o f physical life and the highest forms o f the
spiritual. It is an impulse and a movement rather than a thing.
Plotinian psychology is the study o f the diverse levels at
which the Soul may exist, from the highest—the state o f ec­
stasy and communion with the One, in which “ the Soul is

54
 The Soul

no longer even a Soul” (vi. 7. 35)—to the lowest, where it is

the organizing force in the sensible world. Between these
two points, what we properly call psychology finds its
place, namely, the study o f the faculties o f human under­
standing, memory, sensation, and emotion. These human
faculties appear at a certain level o f the life o f the Soul.
This determines the order to be followed in a study o f
Plotinian psychology. I shall discuss first the particular func­
tion o f the Soul considered as intermediary between the in­
telligible and sensible worlds and as organizer o f the sensible
world. I shall study next the journey o f the Soul across the
diverse regions o f reality, and its destiny. I shall close with
the problems o f psychology in the restricted sense, those
which concern the functions o f consciousness.

But before dealing with the first question,

and as a necessary introduction, we must point out the con­
trast which exists in the thought o f Plotinus between Soul
conceived as the organizing force o f bodies and the soul con­
ceived as the seat o f destiny. From the first point o f view,
the contact o f Soul with the body results from its normal
function. It is good and necessary. From the second point o f
view, on the contrary, the connection o f the soul with the
body is a result o f its impurity and o f its vices.
According to the very sound observation o f Inge,1 this
contrast arose from the meeting in Plotinus o f two different
traditions concerning the nature o f the Soul. On the one
hand, there was the animistic tradition represented by the
Stoics, in which the Soul is considered as an organizing force.
On the other hand, there was the Orphic-Pythagorean tra-
1 W illiam Ralph Inge, The Philosophy o f Plotinus (2 vols.; London and
N e w Y o rk : Longmans, Green & C o., 19 18 ), I, 200.

55
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

dition, which represents the coming o f the Soul into the

the sensible world as a fall.
What must be noted is that Plotinus found this contradic­
tion in Plato and that he expressly mentions it. After men­
tioning the philosophers who have discoursed on the rela­
tions o f soul and body, he adds: “ There remains for us the
divine Plato who has said many noble things about the soul
. . . and we are in hopes o f eliciting something clear from
them. What then does this philosopher say? It appears that
he does not always say the same thing. . . . On the one hand, he
says that the soul is in the body as in a prison or in a tomb.
. . . In the Phaedrus, the loss o f its wings becomes the cause
o f its arrival here below. . . . Thus, according to all these
passages, the coming o f the soul into the body is a repre­
hensible thing. But treating in the Timaeus o f the visible
universe, he speaks in praise o f the world and declares that it
is a blessed god. The soul is a gift o f the goodness o f the
Demiurge, destined to endow the universe with intelligence.
. . . The soul o f the universe has, therefore, been sent into
the universe by God, just as our souls are, in order that the
universe might be perfect” (iv. 8. i).
But this contrast did not result, for Plotinus, merely from
a conflict o f traditions. He himself had a keen inner feeling
concerning it. For he asks how the Soul, this vile creature,
which in admiring sensible things “ admits itself inferior to
them, places itself lower than the things subject to birth and
death and considers itself the most contemptible and mortal
o f the things that it pays homage to,” can be the very being
“ which has created all animals by breathing life into them,
which has created the sun and the immense heaven and has
placed order in it by giving it a regular movement o f rota­
tion” (v. I. 2).

56
 The Soul

This conflict is only a particular expression o f the larger

conflict which I have pointed out in the thought o f Plotinus
between the representation o f the universe as a rational order
and that o f the universe as the theater o f destiny. It is solved
through a twofold elaboration; on the one hand, through a
transformation o f animistic physics in a direction favorable
to his conception o f human destiny; on the other hand, by
an attempt to harmonize universal order and the individual
destinies o f souls. I shall first consider the nature o f this
animistic physics.

There is no idea more commonplace in

Greek thought than that o f animism. The Stoics, who were
the last great representatives o f this theory before Plotinus,
had tried, however, to limit it and to indicate its precise
boundaries. They had admitted that among the driving
forces o f nature there are some forces inferior to the soul,
such as the power o f cohesion in minerals or the principle o f
growth in plants. The soul, in the precise sense o f the word,
has two specific characteristics—representation and impulse
—and can be attributed only to animals.
Plotinus, however, gives to animism an unlimited exten­
sion. For him, every active force in nature is a Soul or is at­
tached to a Soul. Not only does the world as well as the stars
have a Soul, but the earth has one too, thanks to which “ it
gives to plants the power to reproduce.” It is on account o f
this Soul that “ a particle o f earth, removed from the soil, is
no longer the same as when it was a part o f it. It is evident
that stones grow so long as they are imbedded in the soil and
cease to increase in size as soon as they are separated by being
tom out” (iv. 4. 27). There is no inanimate being in the uni­
verse. I f we believe the contrary, it is because we are de­

57
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

ceived by an illusion. “ We say that a thing is not alive be­

cause we are unable to perceive that it receives movement
from the universe. Its life escapes us. A being whose life is
perceptible to our senses is composed o f beings whose life is
imperceptible to us, but whose marvelous powers exert
themselves upon the life o f the whole animal. Man would be
unable to move in so many ways if his motion resulted from
inner forces completely devoid o f Soul. The universe would
be lifeless if each thing in it did not have its own life. . . .
Every being has a creative power, because it has been fash­
ioned and formed within the universe. It has a share o f Soul,
which comes to it from the universe” (iv. 4. 36, 37; cf. also
vi. 7. 11).
It is on account o f his vitalism that Plotinus entertained the
Stoic theory o f the seminal reasons with special interest. The
seminal reason is the force which contains in an indivisible
complex all the characteristics which develop separately and
successively in a living being; it is, as it were, the law o f the
development o f this being. The seminal reason is often pre­
sented by Plotinus as an intermediary between Soul and the
living being. “ Reason would be in a way one of the acts o f
the Soul, an act which cannot exist without a subject who
acts. Such indeed are the seminal reasons. They do not exist
in the Soul, and they are not merely Souls” (vi. 7. 5). But,
now and then, reason is identified with Soul itself. “ Souls
are nothing in the universe but fragments o f universal rea­
son. Reasons are all Souls” (iii. 2. 18). The seminal reason
is then only an expression o f the activity o f Soul and does
not designate a form o f being different from Soul.
This intemperate vitalism, this panpsychism, whose echo
is distinctly recognizable in the thinkers o f the Renaissance

5*
 The Soul

and even in Leibniz, is for Plotinus only a means o f bringing

the very forces o f nature into the great current o f the spiritu­
al life. In fact, because natural force is a soul, it is not only a
driving and active force, mixed with the matter it orders; it
is also the contemplative activity which contains within it­
self the order which it imposes, because it has contemplated
this order in Intelligence. On one side, Soul borders on Intel­
ligence, which is order itself. On the other side, it borders
on matter, which it organizes.
But Soul is an organizing force in its lower part only be­
cause it is an activity o f contemplation in its higher part.
That Plotinus assigns organization and contemplation to two
distinct Souls or to two parts o f the Soul, that sometimes he
opposes these two parts as “ Soul” in the strict sense to
“ nature99— these divergences in expression do not change
any basic ideas. In every case Plotinus maintains that the
organizing activity presupposes, prior to it, an immutable
contemplation o f order. “ The primal part o f the Soul is
above. It remains there always close to the summit in a state
o f fulness and eternal illumination, and it is the first to par­
ticipate in the intelligible. The other part o f the Soul, which
participates in the first, proceeds eternally, a second life
issued from the first, an activity which projects itself in
every direction and is nowhere absent. The Soul, in pro­
ceeding, remains with its higher part in the intelligible world
which its lower part leaves behind. For if the procession
caused it to forsake its higher part, it would no longer be
everywhere but only in the place where the procession ends”
(iii. 8. 5).
Thus the production o f sensible things does not in any
way impair the spiritual life o f the Soul, which remains com­
plete. It is neither a strain nor a concern to the Soul. “ The

59
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

body is not detrimental to the Soul which governs it; for the
Soul dwells in the intelligible heights while ministering to
it . . . The animated universe exists in the Soul which con­
tains it. There is nothing which does not participate in that
Soul. It is like a net cast into the sea, that is saturated with
water but unable to retain the very water in which it exists.
In the sea which stretches out before it, the net stretches out
with it as far as it can. . . . In the same way the Soul is suffi­
ciently great by nature to embrace in one and the same
power every corporeal substance. It is not limited in capaci­
ty. Wheresoever a body spreads out, it is there. But if there
were no body, that would not affect its grandeur in any way.
It would still remain what it is” (iv. 3. 9).
The Soul o f the world is then like a spiritual sea in which
sensible reality bathes; it is not like a workman who recol­
lects, computes, and plans. The animism o f Plotinus is far
removed, in this sense, from any form o f anthropomor­
phism. How could Zeus, the Soul o f the world, recollect the
past periods o f the world, since they are infinite in number?
But “ he sees that this infinity is one, and he possesses a
knowledge and a life which are one” (iv. 4. 9). “ The order
o f the world is the work o f a Soul dependent upon a perma­
nent wisdom the copy o f which is the inner order o f this
Soul. Since this wisdom does not change, neither will the
order change; for there is never a moment when the Soul
does not dwell in the contemplation o f this wisdom. I f it
ceased, it would be reduced to uncertainty.”
Thus the forces acting in the universe are unchanging
because they are the contemplation o f an unchanging order.
They act not “ like the physician who begins from the out­
side and proceeds part by part, feeling his way and deliberat-
ing long, but like nature which heals by proceeding from
the source itself, without any need o f deliberation” (ibid. 11).

60
 The Soul

The production o f varied things, far from impairing the

immutable order, implies it. “ The directing principle o f the
world knows the future as it knows the present, with the
same fixity and without recourse to reasoning. I f it did not
know the future which it produces, it would not produce it
with knowledge and according to a plan. Its production
would be accidental and subject to chance. Therefore, in so
far as it produces, it is immutable. I f it is immutable in so
far as it produces, it produces only according to the model
which it bears within itself. It produces then in one and the
same way. For were it to change each moment its manner
o f producing, what would prevent the failure o f its creation?
. . . The creative principle o f the world must never err,
never be uncertain, although it has been thought at times
that the government o f the world was a painful undertaking.
Difficulties are encountered only when one works at an
unfamiliar task o f which one is not the master. But if one
is the master, nothing is needed except one’s self and will”
(ibid. 12).
We see the direction o f Plotinus’ animism. It consists in
transmuting cosmic forces into spiritual activities. Does there
exist below the part o f the Soul which contemplates the in­
telligible order a ldwer part which possesses a really effec­
tive activity? Not at all; for this lower part o f the Soul,
nature, produces only because it is a reason, that is to say,
“ a contemplation and an obiect o f contemplation. . . . The
being which contemplates produces an object to be con­
templated. Geometers, for example, draw their figures while
contemplating. But I [it is nature which is speaking], I draw
none. I contemplate, and the lines o f bodily objects form
themselves as if they fell from me” (iii. 8. 3, 4).
The power which, in order to produce, turns toward the
work which it executes is, so to speak, only an extreme

61
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

case in which contemplation becomes enfeebled to the

utmost. “ Action is only a shadow o f contemplation and o f
reason.”
It is easy to understand the intentions o f Plotinus in this
transformation o f animism. For him the sole authentic reali­
ty is a spiritual order. I f from a material reality we abstract
both the spiritual order which is reflected in it and the law
or reason which is expressed in it, there remains only non-
being, matter, the place devoid o f reality, in which this
order is realized. N ow an order or a reason can exist as
such, only as an object o f contemplation or as an object o f
knowledge; so the only real force even in the sensible world
is contemplation and its object. The only actual forces are
those o f a spiritual nature. Nature is a sort o f dream o f this
order which is reflected in matter.
This spiritualistic physics is as radically opposed as it can
be to any mechanistic physics.2 The parts are not to be re­
garded as the real elements o f the whole but rather as pro­
ductions o f the whole. The conception or the production
o f the whole must be deemed, therefore, more real than the
parts themselves. These are his principles. And they tend to
establish connections o f a purely spiritual nature between
the parts o f the universe. Thus the sensible world becomes
transparent to the mind, and the forces which animate it can
re-enter the great current o f the spiritual life.

The system o f Plotinus as a whole was

bom o f an endeavor to abolish everything in reality which
2 A n ingenious article by the Byzantmist, Maurice Grabar, “ Plotin et les
origines de l’esthétique médiévale,” Cahiers archéologiques, 1948, pp. 15 - 3 3 ,
shows how this natural philosophy, which claims to comprehend things
not as they appear but as they are in themselves, rules Byzantine art, which
repudiates perspective. See especially ii. 8 . 1 , which deals with real size and
real distance, and the commentary o f Grabar, p. 18

62
 The Soul

is impervious to the spiritual life. The Soul is only a radia­

tion o f this spiritual life. It is the concrete, living, and imagi­
native expression o f the force which brings order into sen­
sible things, thanks to its contemplation o f the intelligible
order.
But there is an obvious contrast between the universal and
ordered life o f the world, as disclosed especially through the
laws o f astronomy, and the spontaneous springing up o f
manifold lives which appear without order upon the surface
o f the earth. On one side there is a fixed order. On the other
side there is generation and corruption, lives which appear
and vanish.
This contrast has been, since Aristotle, the ground o f a
goodly part o f the physical and metaphysical speculation o f
antiquity. Many philosophers assumed the task o f relating
these multiple and individual lives, these particular destinies,
to the universal order. We know in particular how Stoicism
solved the question. Individual souls are fragments o f the
universal Soul and are all subjected to a single order, Fate,
which is the “ conjunction o f causes.” In spite o f the deca­
dence o f Stoicism in Plotinus’ time, this conception o f the
connection o f souls with the cosmic system was kept alive
in the widespread beliefs o f astrology. The cult o f Sol Invic-
tus, established at Rome by Aurelian, comprised a theology
in which the union o f souls with the Cosmos was one o f the
principal articles. Cumont writes: “ The sun [the supreme
deity] . . . a fire endowed with reason . . . becomes the
creator o f the particular reasons which direct the human
microcosm. To it is attributed the creation o f souls. Its glow­
ing disk, darting its rays upon the earth, constantly sent par­
ticles o f fire into the bodies which it called to life, and after
death . . . it caused them to reascend to it. . . . On Mithraic
bas-reliefs, one o f the seven rays which surround the head

63
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

o f Sol Invictus is seen disproportionately prolonged toward

the dying B u ll. . . the cosmogonic animal.” 3 Certain Neo-
platonists o f the second century, such as Numenius, accepted
these views, and we see according to the testimony o f
Plotinus himself (iv. 3. 1) the way in which they tried to
connect them with some o f the texts o f Plato. Plotinus him­
self saw clearly the close connection that existed between
the astrological beließ, the Stoic thesis o f Fate, and the
reabsorption o f individual souls into the universal Soul (iii.
1. 2, 7).
To this mass o f beliefs is opposed an entirely different con­
ception o f the Soul, the one present already in the Platonic
myths and maintained by the Gnostics known to Plotinus.
According to this conception the Soul is not o f this world.
It is entangled in the visible order only accidentally and,
unfortunately for it, in consequence o f a fall. The sensible
order is formed only for the fallen soul. But the Soul pos­
sesses a radical spontaneity o f its own which enables it to
disentangle itself from the world.
This conflict o f ideas is o f the greatest importance for
Plotinus. Indeed, i f our soul were a portion o f the Soul o f
the universe as our body is a portion o f its body our fate
would be confined to “ submitting to the influence o f the
circular movement o f the heavens” (iv. 3. 7 to end). The
doctrines which constitute our soul a portion o f the univer­
sal Soul interpose this soul as an opaque screen between us
and the intelligible world.
On the other hand, how are we to concede that souls are
isolated and separated from each other? Do we not feel a
mutual sympathy between souls which assures us o f their
3 Cum ont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (N ew
Y o rk and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 19 12 ), pp. 1 3 1 , 188.

64
 The Soul

unity? “ A play evokes in us a shared feeling o f suffering and

jo y, and we naturally submit to the lure o f affection; and
affection arises indeed from the unity o f souls. I f incantations
and magical charms draw us nearer and enable us to com­
municate through sympathy over great distances, the reason
is found in the unity o f the Soul. Sentences uttered in a low
voice have a far-reaching effect and are heard at great dis­
tances. In the light o f this fact, we are able to comprehend
the unity o f all things, which proceeds from the unity o f
the Soul” (iv. 9. 3).
But i f this is so, must we not deny that there is really a
multiplicity o f souls, and are we not thrown back upon the
doctrine which makes o f each o f our thoughts “ the thoughts
o f another being? . . . And yet each must be himself, our
thoughts and actions must be ours, and our actions, good or
bad, must come from us” (iii. 1. 4). In short, how are we to
conceive o f the relations o f individual souls to the universal
Soul?
Does this relation consist in the partial souls’ being parts
o f the universal Soul? But in what sense are we to under­
stand the word “ part” ? I f we imagine the Soul o f the uni­
verse as a corporeal mass which is reduced to fragments, we
shall indeed thus obtain many souls, but all unity will dis­
appear. “ The single Soul would waste away in a multiplicity
o f points” (iv. 9.4). “ This would be to lose the [single] Soul
and to reduce it to a mere name. I f it ever existed, it would
be like wine distributed into severaljars, and the wine which
is in each jar might be called a portion o f the total mass o f
wine” (iv. 3. 2).
Shall we say that individual souls “ are parts o f the univer­
sal Soul in the sense in which, in an animal, the soul which
is in the finger would be called a part o f the Soul which is

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also in the toe?” Contrary to the other hypothesis, we shall

indeed thus maintain the unity o f the universal life, but we
shall by no means explain the multiplicity o f individual
lives. For according to this hypothesis, “ the Soul must be
complete and the same everywhere, one and the same Soul
existing in several beings at once. But then we are unable to
say that there is, on the one hand, the universal Soul, and
on the other, the parts o f this Soul.” But, it may be said,
does not the diversity o f the powers the universal Soul exer­
cises in different parts o f the universe suffice to account for
the multiplicity o f souls? For example, the universal Soul
manifesting itself here as vegetative power, there, as sensi­
tive power. That however explains nothing, since then each
soul, identified with one particular power, would not pos­
sess as in fact it does, at least theoretically, the same powers
as the universal Soul. “ Each part would not be able to think.
Only the universal Soul would be capable o f that. Other­
wise the supposed part would be a rational Soul, as rational
as the universal Soul, and hence identical with this Soul, not
a part o f it” (ibid. 3).
So we affirm either multiplicity at the expense o f unity,
or else unity at the expense o f multiplicity. The point is that
both multiplicity and unity must be conceived quite differ­
ently. We must insist first that the multiple souls are homo­
geneous with respect to each other and that they all possess
in a way the same capacity for the spiritual life. “ Our souls
ascend to the same objects as the Soul o f the whole, and their
intellectual function is alike” (ibid. 1). “ Our soul is the same
in kind as that o f the gods. When we consider it in itself and
without that which is adventitious, we find the same value
in it as in the Soul o f the world” (v. 1. 2). The truth is that
each soul is potentially in all beings and thereby it possesses

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unity with other souk. For: “ as others as well as ourselves

are beings, we are all beings. Together we make up the sum
o f beings; hence, all together we make but one.” This unity
is not then like the abstract unity o f a point. It is rather the
union o f souls which, at their summit, participate wholly in
the same intelligible contemplation. “ But we are unaware
o f our unity because we look away from the being upon
which we depend. We are all like a head with several faces
turned outward, but which within forms a single summit.
Were we able to turn around o f our own accord, or if we
were fortunate enough ‘to be plucked by the hair as
Achilles was by Athena/ we would see God, ourselves, and
the universal being at the same time. As there is no point at
which we may fix our own limits, so as to say: ‘thus far, it
is 1/ we surrender all claims to separateness from the univer­
sal being” (vi. 5. 7).
So in Plotinus we cannot speak o f a single Soul which is
broken up into a multiplicity o f souls. The problem o f the
multiplicity o f souls is solved through an appeal to the
spiritual life. There is, at the highest stage o f this life for
souls, a state o f union such that we may no longer speak o f
several souls. It is a state o f union which is hypostatized into
a single Soul, which precedes all others. Or, shall we say,
this one Soul is like a system whose unity corresponds to
that o f the intelligible system o f ideas which it contemplates.
“ Souls have each a bond o f dependence upon an intelligence
and are the reasons o f the intelligences . . . each correspond­
ing to an intelligible which is less divided than itself. Never­
theless, souls have the will to be divided, but they are un­
able to reach the end o f this process. They preserve identity
with difference. Each subsists as a being, but all together
constitute but one being. Here we have the main point o f

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our thesis. All souls spring from one. The manifold souls
springing from a single Soul are like the intelligences, for
they are at once divided and not divided” (iv. 3. 5).
The multiplication o f souls does not consist in a creation
o f new beings but in the fact that the bonds which link them
to the universal Soul are relaxed and that the particularity
o f each soul is revealed. While certain souls “ have not given
up the universal Soul, their sister” (ibid» 6), and “ are hiding
what they possess o f the particular in the universality o f the
intelligible world, others leap forth, so to speak, from the
universal being into a particular being upon which they
direct a particular activity” (vi. 4. 16). Every soul is either
universal actually and particular potentially, and then it is
one with the universal Soul, or else, “ in changing the direc­
tion o f its activity it becomes one particular soul, although
in another sense, potentially, it retains its universality”
(iibid.).
Finally, the multiplicity o f souls is the multiplicity o f a
spiritual life which goes on diminishing and wearing away
from the state o f union to one o f dispersion. The images
Plotinus employs to express his thought aim to emphasize
the idea o f the continuity between the diverse levels o f the
life o f souls. In speaking o f the one Soul whence all souls
proceed, he says, “ It is like a city which itself has a Soul and
which contains inhabitants each o f which has a soul. But
the Soul o f the city is both more perfect and powerful, al­
though there is nothing which prevents other souls from pos­
sessing the same nature as it.” Again: “ From one single Soul
many and different souls proceed, as higher and lower spe­
cies proceed from a single genus” (iv. 8. 3).
Through this theory the world o f souls was withdrawn
from the control o f a fate implicit in the world and was
linked directly to the intelligible order.

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But Plotinus had to meet a further diffi­

culty, a difficulty similar to the one discussed but far greater.
The multiplication o f souls ends, in its last stage, in their dis­
persion in matter and in their union with individual bodies
to which they impart life. That is the natural and necessary
result o f the law o f procession, o f the progressive dissemina­
tion o f spiritual power. A body is alive because it has re­
ceived “ as an illumination or warmth” the mark o f the soul
which it was prepared to receive. There is, therefore, noth­
ing here but a natural and necessary consequence.
But on the other hand, the descent o f the Soul into the
body is represented in the myths o f Plato and in the religious
beliefs in the time o f Plotinus as resulting from a spontaneous
act o f the Soul, an act in itself evil, which is at once the con­
sequence and the source o f the Soul’s misery. Plotinus raises
the question, How can this conception o f the Soul be recon­
ciled with the former? “ If the Soul [illuminating the body]
does not become evil in itself, if it is merely its mode o f entry
and presence in bodies, then what is the significance o f the
periodic descent and ascent o f souls? Why the punishments
and the migrations into the bodies o f other animals? These
are some o f the teachings we have inherited from the ancient
philosophers who have best dealt with the Soul. It will be
well then to try to show that our present thesis is in accord,
or, at any rate, is not in disagreement with theirs” (vi. 4. 16).
Whatever may have been the good intentions o f Plotinus
in this connection, it is to be noted that a contrast between
the two conceptions still persists. On the one hand, the pro­
duction o f living and animated bodies is considered a
natural function o f the Soul. “ Souls cannot exist alone with­
out manifesting the products o f their activity. It is inherent
in every nature to produce and to develop, proceeding from
an indivisible principle, a sort o f seed, into a visible effect.

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. . . I f matter is eternal, it is impossible, since it exists, that

it should not share in the principle which provides each
thing with the good, in so far as it is capable o f receiving it”
(iv. 8. 6). The animation o f bodies is part and parcel o f the
universal order. In the world “ all is determined through sub­
jection to a single reason; all is regulated, the descent and
ascent o f souls as well as all the rest. The proof o f the accord
o f souls with the order o f the universe, the proof that they do
not act separately but that they co-ordinate their descents
and are in accord with the circular movement o f the world,
lies in the fact that their fortunes, lives, and wills have their
signs in the figures assumed by the planets and are united,
so to speak, in one single melodic theme. . . . This could not
be so if the universe did not possess actions and passions cor­
responding to the life o f souls and did not measure their
periods, ranks, and lives in the courses they run” (iv. 3. 12).
The Soul moves without reflection toward the body pre­
pared for it by the Soul o f the world. It “ is transported into
the body which it most closely resembles; . . . when the
appointed time comes, it descends into it as at the call o f
a Herald” (ibid. 12, 13 and vi. 7. 7). In this way the Soul
spreads out naturally, through a necessary process, from the
intelligible world in which its summit remains to the plant
which it causes to grow. “ The Soul seems to reach down as
far as to plants. It advances to them indeed, since the vege­
tative principle belongs to it. But Soul does not project
itself into them completely. It comes into plants because, in
descending to that point in the lower region, it produces
another existence in this very procession through benevo­
lence toward lower beings. But as regards its own higher
part which is attached to Intelligence and which constitutes
its own Intelligence, the Soul lets it remain motionless in
itself” (v. 2. 1).

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But, elsewhere, Plotinus speaks quite differently. It is the

pride and audacity o f the Soul which cause it to plunge into
bodies. “ Souls see their images as if in the mirror o f Diony­
sius, and, from above, they leap downward toward them”
(iv. 3. 12). The Soul is not content to radiate. It is attracted
by the reflection which it has produced. I f some souls re­
main motionless, “ others are attracted by the brilliant reflec­
tion they produce upon the things which they illuminate.
. . . Confined to their bodies, they are enchained by magical
bonds and are possessed entirely by their concern for bodily
existence” (ibid. 17). The question is no longer one concern­
ing the eternal procession through which the Soul spreads
out, but o f a positive and momentary step by which it cuts
itself off from the flow o f the spiritual life and becomes in­
carnate. “ Souls pass from the universe to its parts, for each
desires to exist independently. It wearies o f dwelling with
another and withdraws into itself Remaining for a long
time in this state o f withdrawal and separation from the
whole, without directing its attention toward the intelligible,
the soul becomes a fragment and is isolated. . . . Concen­
trating upon a single object separated from the whole, the
soul withdraws from all the others. It comes and turns to­
ward this single object, buffeted by all the others. It turns
away from the whole and governs its particular object with
difEculty. The soul is now caught in contact with this object
and protects it from external objects. It is present to it and
for the most part sinks into it. Thence comes what is called
the loss o f wings” (iv. 8. 4).
Indeed, we must distinguish the natural and necessary act
by which the Soul animates the body from the act by which
it unites with this body voluntarily, so to speak. At the time
when the Soul produces a reflection o f itself in matter (a
living body), “ it is still in its proper sphere, in the inter-

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mediate region. But then it casts a second glance upon its

image, and it gives it form through this second glance and,
satisfied, descends into it” (iii. 9. 2).
Thus the Soul, in the myth o f the descent, goes “ farther
than is necessary,” that is to say, farther than the law o f
procession requires. Once this procession is completed, the
Soul has its higher part in the intelligible, a reflection o f itself
in matter, and between these two a middle part. It is then
only that the “ descent” takes place; the higher part remains
in the intelligible, but the middle part o f the Soul is drawn
toward its reflection.
There is an undeniable contradiction between these two
accounts. Plotinus does not indicate how it may be removed,
but perhaps it is possible to account for it. The theory o f
procession poses the Soul as a hypostatized spiritual activity
which spreads down from the intelligible to the sensible
world. But this hypostasis which constitutes our soul is not
ourselves, or at least it is not completely ourselves, for to this
reality existing in itself which constitutes our soul is added
our own attitude toward it. We may exist in it at various
levels, and we may separate ourselves? from its higher part.
But then what is this “ we” which is distinct from the soul
without being completely distinct from it? It seems that at
times Plotinus has an intuition o f an essentially subjective
activity which cannot be transformed into a thing and be
hypostatized. Our soul extends before us like an object.
Strictly speaking, there is neither movement nor descent in
it. It is the body which advances toward the soul in order
to be enlightened by it. We may identify ourselves with this
reflection and also separate ourselves from it. Thus we intro­
duce a break between us and the higher part o f our soul, a
break which exists only for us but which does not obstruct

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the real continuity between the intelligible and the sensible

worlds. In other words, our self, what we are in ourselves,
is not identical in content with our soul. “ If we possess such
great things within us,” Plotinus asks, after having enumerat­
ed the properties o f the Soul, “ why do we not perceive
them? Why do we spend most o f our time without exer­
cising such activities, and why do certain men never exer­
cise them? These great objects, Intelligence as well as its
antecedent principle [the One], always persist in their ac­
tivity. . . . The Soul is also animated by an eternal move­
ment. But we are not conscious o f all that there is in our
soul. Only what penetrates through to sensation reaches us.
As long as an activity is not felt, it does not pass through the
entire Soul. Because o f our faculty o f sensation we are un­
aware that we are not a fragment o f Soul, but Soul in its
entirety. Each part o f the Soul always lives and acts accord­
ing to its particular function. But we are aware o f them
only when there is communication and perception o f them.”
Thus in spite o f the logic o f the system o f the procession,
Dur own activity, our subjective spiritual attitude, if we may
call it thus, tends in Plotinus to set itself off from this spiritual
activity transformed into a thing, which is the hypostasis.
While the outlines o f this activity are furnished by the very
order o f things and while this activity itself does not lay
them out, at least it is not entirely their prisoner, since it
may move about within them.

The whole psychology o f Plotinus, in the

special sense o f the term, is dominated by the principle pre­
viously cited, that “ there is no point at which one may
determine one’s own limits, so as to say, ‘so far it is I* ”
(vi. 5. 7).

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In the highest spiritual states, consciousness o f personality

disappears at the same time as attention to external things.
Having reached the intelligible world, man “ has no recol­
lection o f himself. He does not recall that it is he, Socrates,
who is contemplating. He is not aware whether he is an In­
telligence or a Soul. Think o f those contemplative states
which are very profound even in this world, in which
thought never becomes conscious o f itself. We are in pos­
session o f ourselves, but all our activity is directed upon the
object contemplated. We become this object and we offer
ourselves to it as matter which it informs. We are no longer
ourselves except potentially/*
As to the normal functions o f the mind such as reasoning,
memory, sensibility, these do not constitute the core, but
derivations and limitations, o f the spiritual life. Conscious­
ness, far from being for Plotinus the essential thing, is an
accident and a state o f weakness. The less conscious the Soul
is o f its own qualities the more completely it possesses them
(iv. 4. 4). We always think, but we are not always conscious
o f thinking (iv. 3. 30). “ The act [of thinking] is not dis­
cerned when it is not related to an object of sense; for it is
only through the intermediary o f sensation that one can re­
late the activity o f thought to intellectual objects. . . . Im­
pression o f them takes place, it seems, when thought turns
inward upon itself and when the being which is active in
the life o f the Soul is, in some sort, reflected back upon it,
like the image in a mirror when its polished and brilliant
surface is motionless. . . . I f this part o f ourselves in which
the reflections o f reason and Intelligence appear is not dis­
turbed, these reflections are visible in it. In such a case, not
only do Intelligence and reason know their objects, but in
addition, we have as it were a sensory knowledge o f this

74
 The Soul

action. But i f this mirror is shattered by a disturbance which

has taken place in the harmony o f the body, reason and in­
telligence operate without being reflected in it, and then we
have thought without images. . . . One may find, even in
the waking state, extremely beautiful activities, meditation,
and actions which consciousness does not accompany. Thus
he who reads is not necessarily conscious that he is reading,
especially if he is reading attentively” (i. 4. 10).
It follows that at the highest stage o f the spiritual life of
the Soul there is no memory, since the Soul is not in time;
no sensibility, since the Soul has no relation with sensible
things; no reasoning or any discursive thought, since there
“ is no reasoning in the eternal.” Between the normal func­
tions o f consciousness and the inmost nature o f the Soul,
there is a contradiction.
Psychological explanation in Plotinus consists in showing
how these functions o f the Soul arise gradually from a for­
feiture o f the spiritual life. It is the lowering o f the level o f
the Soul within metaphysical reality that gives rise to memo­
ry, sensibility, and the understanding. Psychology consists
in determining what precisely this level is for a given func­
tion. Plotinus’ discussion is very fragmentary. He devoted
lengthy considerations to memory, and I shall turn to study­
ing them first.

We ask at what level it is that memory

comes into existence. Is it, as the Stoics thought, a function
o f the part o f the Soul which is united to the body? Not at
all, since recollection takes place after the disappearance o f
the sense impression. Besides, we recollect not only sense
objects but also knowledge acquired in the sciences (iv.
3- 25).

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Will it be said that recollection can take place only in the

Soul united to a body? It will, no doubt. But first, the imprint
produced by the sense object is nothing material. The Soul
is not a “ surface coated with wax” ; the impression in the
Soul is a “ sort o f intellection,” even in the case o f sensible
things. Moreover, i f memory is a retention, it is so in virtue
o f the characteristics proper to the soul and “ because the
soul is not one o f the things which are in a perpetual flux.”
Finally, the body is an obstacle to memory. Does not drink­
ing produce forgetfulness (ibid. 26)?
It will be said next that memory belongs really to the
Soul, in so far as the Soul is not entangled in the body. But
at what level in the Soul are we to place it? Must we con­
nect with each faculty the recollection o f the objects which
are related to it and say, for example, that it is through the
faculty o f desire that we recollect the object desired? Not at
all; for, without doubt, following close upon a satisfied de­
sire, there develops in the faculty o f desire a modification
which is retained. But this modification is a mere disposi­
tion or present affection. It is not recollection, properly
speaking (ibid. 28).
Nor is remembrance the persistence o f the sense impres­
sion. Experience shows us that the necessary connection
which ought to obtain in this case between a good memory
and a definite and refined perception does not exist. These
are facts o f another order. Memory, at least that concerning
sensible things, has as its real object the image to which
sensation gives rise, but the retention o f which depends on
the imagination (ibid.).
It will be objected that this explains the remembrance o f
sense objects but not the recollection o f intellectual things.
Plotinus replies that, strictly speaking, if we recall the latter,

76
 The Soul

it is solely in so far as they are linked to sensible images. If,

as Aristotle says, an image accompanies each thought, the
persistence o f this image, which is like the reflection o f the
conception, will explain the recollection o f the object
known. Among these images, there are some which have a
very special importance. These are the verbal formulas which
accompany every thought. “ Thought is an indivisible thing,
and as long as it is not given outward expression, but re­
mains inward, it eludes us. Language, by developing thought
and causing it to pass from the state o f thought to that of
image, reflects thought like a mirror. Thus thought is per­
ceived. It lasts and is recalled” (ibid. 30).
We come then to see the real seat o f memory. It is in the
soul, but not in the Soul purified from all contact with the
body. Thus, as this purification takes place, memory is
gradually eliminated. “ The more the Soul strives after the
intelligible, the more it forgets things here below. In this
sense, therefore, we may say that the good Soul is forgetful”
(ibid. 32). At its highest point, the Soul, placed within the
intelligible world, no longer possesses any recollections. “ It
is impossible when thought applies itself to the intelligibles
to do anything else but to think and to contemplate them;
and thought at any given moment does not imply the recol­
lection o f having thought” (iv. 4. 1). Let no one object that
intellectual thought is a movement which comprises succes­
sive moments, such as the division o f the genus into species,
and, consequently, at each moment, the memory o f the pre­
ceding moments. For here the question is one o f logical
priority and posteriority which relate to order and not to
succession in time, just as the order o f dependence that exists
between the parts o f a plant does not prevent us from seeing
it as a whole.

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Taking this higher state as a starting point, we can now

see how memory originates in the Soul. It arises as soon as
the Soul leaves the intelligible and seeks to distinguish itself
from it. Then there is no longer complete assimilation be­
tween the Soul and its object. It is this distance at which the
soul stands from the intelligible world which is the cause
o f its possessing only images. “ The Soul still possesses all
things. But it possesses them derivatively, and thus it does
not become all things completely” (ibid. 3). The image
arises then from a penetration o f the object which is incom­
plete, but nevertheless sufficient to bring the Soul into con­
formity with this object.
However, one might object, is not the life o f souls and
even o f the higher Souls, such as those o f the stars linked to
the course o f time? Does not the Soul o f a star act in the
stream o f time in order to direct its body, and ought it not,
in spite o f its superiority, to retain the recollection o f the
past moments o f its action? But the recollection o f one o f
these moments would presuppose that this moment can be
distinguished and isolated from all the others. N ow this is
not always so. The life o f a star is not cut up into fragments
so that one may divide it. “ To distinguish a yesterday and
a last year in the cycle o f a star is like dividing the movement
o f a foot which advances in a single step into several move­
ments, and as i f one saw in this single impulse a multiplicity
o f individual and successive impulses. The duration o f the
life o f a star is indivisible, and it is we who, from our point
o f view, distinguish days and nights and parts o f time”
(ibid. 7).
These considerations enable us to understand better under
what conditions life in the medium o f duration is accom­
panied by memory. It is on condition that this duration

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 The Soul

loses its unity and is divided into fragments. Memory de­

pends then upon the attitude o f the soul. It revives the past
only in so far as it has an interest in reviving it. I f different
sensations caused by different objects do not interest it, the
Soul will not receive them into its memory. In particular,
i f we always have to perform the same action under the same
conditions (which is the case with the Soul o f the star), we
shall not retain the least recollection o f succession in time.
“ When one is always repeating the same act, it is useless to
remember each detail o f this act, since it remains the same”
(ibid. 8). Memory exists, then, only in a life reduced to frag­
ments, assailed constantly by new impressions and by ever
recurring needs.

Plotinus’ study o f memory gives the best

illustration o f the method he employed in psychological
research. Let us see how he applied this method to the prob­
lem o f pleasure and pain.
Pleasure and pain exist at a lower level than memory.
They do not belong completely to the Soul, but also to the
body which is bound to it, and to the compound o f soul and
body. There is no affection in the inanimate body which is
indifferent to the dissolution o f its parts, since its substance
is indissoluble. But when the body attempts to unite with
the soul, they form “ a dangerous and unstable alliance”
which gives rise to difficulties. The body is in fact subjected
to all sorts o f modifications, which are more or less com­
patible with the presence o f the life which comes to it from
the Soul. When the body is organically impaired, there is
“ a recoil o f the body, which is being deprived o f the image
o f the Soul it possesses,” and; at the precise point affected,
pain is produced. This is why pain is felt and localized in the

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

affected part. Only the body suffers. Inversely, pleasure is

produced when the bodily change is such that it enables the
body to receive afresh the influence o f the Soul.
In a word, pleasure is an increase and pain a decrease in
the vitality o f the body. From pleasure and pain, we must
distinguish the Soul’s perception o f them, which takes place
at a higher level. “ The sensation itself is not suffering, but
knowledge o f the suffering. Being knowledge, it is un­
moved” (ibid. 18-19).
Desire is, according to Plotinus, a complex phenomenon
which arises at various levels. Its origin is in the living body.
“ It is not the Soul which desires sweet or bitter savors. It is
the body, but body which does not wish to be mere body”
and which desires them in order to increase its vitality. At
this stage, desire is inclination or pre-desire. It depends upon
the present state o f the body. At a second stage, desire is
found in nature, that is to say, in that part emanating from
the Soul which maintains the living body. Nature does not
gratify every inclination o f the body, because she seeks solely
what can restore the body. Nature unites herself with the
desires o f the body only if these desires do not depend upon
the momentary interest o f the organ affected but aim at the
preservation o f the organism. At a third stage, finally, desire
penetrates to the Soul. “ Sensation presents the image o f the
object, and, on the basis o f this image, the Soul, whose role
it is, either satisfies the desire or else resists it. The soul ac­
cepts it and pays no attention either to the body in which
the desire originated or to nature which then manifested
desire” (ibid. 20-21).
In anger, Plotinus also distinguishes what proceeds from
the body—the seething o f bile and blood—and what pro­
ceeds from the Soul. There is first the perception or the

So
 The Soul

image o f the object which has caused the organic disturb­

ance, and next the disposition o f the Soul to attack and to
resist. But there is also an “ anger which comes from above.”
The representation o f the object and the moral disposition
are then anterior to the physiological changes (ibid. 28).
These examples are sufficient to show the fulness o f Ploti­
nus* method in dealing with psychological questions and
how he had an intuition o f the importance o f organic phe­
nomena in the life o f the Soul in a much more precise man­
ner than any other philosopher o f antiquity.

The understanding (5tavoia) is consid­

ered by Plotinus as the proper and normal level o f the Soul,
intermediate between Intelligence and the sensible world.
The understanding is what we are, whereas Intelligence on
the one hand, and the body on the other, are only possessions
o f ours.
The understanding has three principal functions. First, it
composes and divides, using images derived from sensations.
Thus it develops the image it has o f a Socrates by relating
the details which the imagination supplies it. In the second
place, it relates the data o f sensation to the notions that are
impressed on it by the intelligible ideas. It determines, for
example, whether Socrates is good, not through pure sense
data, but because it has within itself the norm o f the good.
Third, it identifies present and recent images with past ones.
It recognizes that the person before it is Socrates.
The understanding has then, for Plotinus, a discursive and
a connective function; “ it knows that it is discursive, that is,
created for the purpose o f comprehending external things.”
But in this effort to comprehend, it rises toward Intelligence
from which it receives illumination (v. 3. 2-3).

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

To regard the lower faculties as being added to the Soul

as it descends to a lower stage would be to misunderstand
this psychology. That would be an admission that the
descent o f the Soul* far from impoverishing it, enriches and
advances it and brings into actuality heretofore dormant
powers. In reality, the lower faculties are only an impover­
ished expression and a defective form o f what the Soul con­
tains eternally. The faculty o f feeling which exists in the
sensory man is, for example, the reflection o f a more exalted
faculty o f feeling which exists in “ the intelligible man,” that
is to say, in the higher part o f the Soul. “ Intelligible beings
may be called sensible, since they are in their way objects o f
perception. Sensation here below, what we call sensation
because it relates to bodies, is more obscure than the percep­
tion which takes place in the intelligible; it only appears
clearer. We call earthly man sense-bound because he per­
ceives less clearly and perceives images inferior to their
models. Thus sensations are obscure thoughts and intelligible
thoughts are clear sensations” (vi. 7. 7).

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The Soul, from which emanate all forces

which organize and animate the sensible universe, can
through an act o f conversion collect itself and reascend to
its principle which is Intelligence.
The Plotinian theory o f Intelligence contains so many
heterogeneous elements and is related to so many different
problems that it is particularly difficult to analyze and to
demonstrate its unity. Intelligence corresponds to the
Platonic Ideas. It contains the substance o f the Aristotelian
theory o f form. It has something o f the supreme God o f the
Stoics, the Intelligence which governs the universe. But these
are merely the philosophical aspects o f the theory, in which
Intelligence is considered as cause and explanation o f the
sensible world. For, on the other hand, Intelligence denotes
a step in the spiritual life, a stage in the upward journey o f
the soul toward its final goal. This is an entirely different
aspect; it reminds us o f Spirit as St. Paul employs the term—
Spirit liberated from the flesh—rather than Intelligence in
the sense in which it is used in Greek philosophy.
This difference in perspective is illustrated by the difficul­
ties which translators encounter in rendering the word Nous,
which I have translated so far by “ Intelligence.” It is the term
Bouillet used in his translation o f the Enneads, and he is sup-

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ported by a long tradition. In the Scholasticism o f the thir­

teenth century the word intelligentsia designates nearly always
the separated and hypostatized intelligence as it appeared in
the philosophy o f the Arabs, born o f Aristotle and Plotinus.
On the other hand, recent interpreters appear to agree in
using another term. Amou1 uses the word esprit. Inge2
chooses the word “ Spirit,” which, according to him, em­
phasizes the kinship between this idea and the Paulinian
7rvevfia. Likewise, in a recent study Heinemann3 uses the
word Geisty which, in a German philosopher, is enriched
by the meaning it had in the Hegelian philosophy.
These translations, at least the first two, possess the draw­
back o f not designating clearly enough the philosophic
aspect o f the concept. On the other hand, the word “ intel­
ligence” (and this is perhaps the reason why it is rejected at
the present time) has the disadvantage o f suggesting the
sense in which it is taken by our modem anti-intellectual
theories, that is to say, in the sense o f discursive thought.
N ow, in Plotinus, Intelligence is essentially intuitive. In
spite o f its drawbacks, I shall retain, with due reservation,
this word sanctioned by tradition.
We see what constitutes the difficulty and the significance
o f the Plotinian theory. The spiritualism o f a St. Paul con­
cerns itself very little with the intelligible world as the model
o f the sensible world. It has, toward the sensible world,
which is the world o f the flesh, a purely negative attitude.
Spirit does not explain it but is liberated from it. Against
1 René Am ou, Le désir de Dieu dans la philosophie de Plotin (Paris: F. A l­
can, 19 2 1).
2W illiam Ralph Inge, The Philosophy o f Plotinus (2 vols.; London and
N ew Y o rk : Longmans, Green & C o ., 19 18).
3 Fritz Heinemann, Plotin (Leipzig: F. Meiner, 19 2 1).

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this movement which emptied Intelligence o f all rational

and explanatory content in favor o f spirit, there arose at an
early period, even before St. Paul, an inverse movement o f
ideas which ended in Hellenizing, as it were, the spiritual
life by identifying it with the intelligible world. Witness
Philo o f Alexandria, whose Logos is both the divine thought
which contains the models o f things and the spiritual guide
which saves souls. Witness, closer to Plotinus, the Gnostics
who tried to show how the place o f the spirits, the “ new
earth” where the pneumatics are welcomed, is at the same
time the intelligible world.
The views o f Plotinus on this point are then merely tra­
ditional, but developed to a point o f elaboration which
places them beyond comparison. His own doctrine consists
in showing that the spiritual attitude in its highest stage, the
act o f concentration, gives us being in all its richness and
variety. “ To think one’s self,” he repeats often, “ is to think
the real beings.” “ What the Soul receives [in meditation
upon itself] borders upon true reality” (v. 9. 3). This inward
contemplation is, at the same time, the highest stage o f being.
“ To exist, in the highest sense, does not consist in multiply­
ing or in growing, it consists in possessing one’s self; and one
possesses one’s self when one leans inward on one’s self . . .
This direction toward self constitutes the inner life.”
Hence the plan we shall pursue in this study o f Intelligence
will consist in ascertaining the philosophical elements in the
conception o f Intelligence in Plotinus and in showing how
he utilized them in making them serve his purpose, which
is the development o f the spiritual life. Finally, we shall show
that the spiritual life finds its limit and consummation
above itself.

*5
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

Through what philosophical considera­

tions is the notion o f Intelligence introduced in Plotinus? In
the first place, Intelligence appears as the necessary term o f
the dialectic o f love, as Plato has described it in the Sym­
posium. In the second place, it stems from Aristotle’s analysis
o f sensible being into matter and form. Finally, it appears as
the ultimate condition o f the sympathy o f the parts o f the
world, o f which Plotinus found the description in the
Stoics.
In the fifth Ennead (9. 2), we note that Plotinus draws
upon the discourse o f Diotima o f Mantinea. “ One will
reach the higher region i f one possesses the nature o f a lover
and if, from the beginning, one has the natural aptitude o f
a true philosopher. It is the characteristic o f the lover in the
presence o f beauty to feel something similar to the pains o f
childbirth. He is not content with bodily beauty but takes
his flight to the beauties o f the Soul, such as virtue, knowl­
edge, the honorable vocations, and laws. He rises even to the
source o f the beauties o f the Soul and still higher. . . . But
how is he to ascend? Whence will the power come and what
is it that will teach him this love? Is it not the following? The
beauties o f bodies are derivative. These beauties exist in
them as forms imposed upon matter. . . . What then has
produced beauty in bodies? In one sense, it is the presence o f
Beauty. In another sense, it is the Soul which fashions them
and beautifies them. What! The Soul is then beautiful in
itself? No, since certain souls are wise and beautiful, while
others are foolish and ugly. The Soul’s beauty comes then
from wisdom. But what imparts beauty to the Soul? Must
it not be Intelligence, not the intelligence which sometimes
is intelligence and sometimes is not, but rather true Intel­
ligence?”

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Where Plato arrives at the Idea o f the Beautiful, Plotinus,

by the same path, arrives at Intelligence. The reason for this
is that, for Plotinus, the one is identical with the other. The
Ideas, identical with Intelligence, constitute that which gives
to things their quality o f beauty. In reascending by the steps
o f dialectics, “ the Soul will come first to Intelligence; and
will know that, in it, all the ideas are beautiful; and it will
avow that there is Beauty,” to wit: “ the Ideas” (i. 6. 9). In­
telligence appears at first then as a sort o f natural art which
is reflected in sensible things, as the sculptor’s art impresses
its forms on the marble (cf. v. 9. 5).
The aesthetics o f Plotinus is impregnated with the idea
that beauty is not added to things as an external accident but
constitutes their very essence (i. 2). He protests against the
theory according to which beauty consists merely in the
outward symmetry o f the parts o f an obiect. I f beauty is
merely symmetry, will it not follow that the parts o f a
beautiful thing are not beautiful? And why should the
countenance o f a corpse or o f a statue always be less beauti­
ful than that o f a living being? Finally, how may we explain
that some simple things which are without parts can be
beautiful, like the luster o f gold or a flash o f lightning in the
night? Beauty must then be a fundamental constituent o f
the beautiful being; and it must be the reflection o f an Idea
which makes this being what it is. Aesthetic value and in­
tellectual value coincide.
It is for the same reasons that moral loftiness, just as aes­
thetic contemplation, leads us to Intelligence. Virtues, in the
highest sense, those which consist not in practical actions but
in “ purifications,” are imitations within the Soul o f proper­
ties inherent in Intelligence. There is in Intelligence a justice
per se toward which we are raised by the justice which exists

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in the soul and in the city, “Justice consists in a being’s dis­

charging its proper function. But does it always imply a
multiplicity o f parts? Yes, in regard to the justice which
exists in the beings, souls, or cities, which possess several
distinct parts; no, in regard to Justice as such, since fulfilment
o f function can exist in an undivided being. Justice in its
truest sense, Justice per se, exists in the relation to itself o f the
being which has no distinct parts” (i. 2. 6).
Thus all models o f virtues are merely aspects o f Intelli­
gence. “ Knowledge or wisdom are its thoughts. Temperance
is the relation it sustains to itself. Justice is the exercise o f its
characteristic activity. Intelligence illustrates courage through
its maintained identity and purity” (ibid. 7). “ In the Soul,
virtues are imitations o f these models. Justice is an activity
striving toward Intelligence. Temperance is an inward with­
drawal into Intelligence. Courage is an impassibility which
imitates the natural impassibility o f Intelligence” (ibid. 6).
Intellectual values are moral values, as they are aesthetic
values. It is only in the abstract that one may separate them.
Moral activity and contemplation o f the beautiful lead us to
Intelligence quite as directly as does knowledge.

The second avenue which led to Intelli­

gence was the Aristotelian analysis o f sense objects into
matter and form. “ We see that what is called a being is a
compound. N o being is simple, whether it is a work o f art
or a product o f nature. Artificial things contain brass, wood,
or stone, and they do not acquire their full reality until art
forms a statue, a bed, or a house out o f them in introducing
form which proceeds from it. Among the natural com­
pounds some are very complex. We call them combinations
and they may be broken down into components. . . for

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example, man into soul and body, and the body into the
four elements. But each o f the elements is composed o f a
material and o f that which imparts form to it . . . and we
ask from where form comes to matter. We also ask whether
the soul, in its turn, is a simple being or whether matter and
form exist in it. . . . Applying the same principles to the
universe, we shall thus also reach an Intelligence which we
shall deem the actual creator and demiurge. We may say
that the substratum which receives forms becomes fire,
water, air, or earth, but that these forms come to it from an­
other being and that this being is the Soul. The Soul imparts
to the four elements the form o f the world, o f which the
Soul makes a gift to them. But it is Intelligence which pro­
vides the Soul with the seminal reasons, iust as art provides
the soul o f the artist with rational rules o f action. Intelli­
gence, in so far as it is form, is both the form o f the Soul and
that which bestows form” (v. 9. 3).
Here Intelligence appears then as the form o f forms, the
datorformamm upon which Arabic and Scholastic philosophy
were to speculate later at such length. Although Plotinus
drew inspiration here from the Timaeus, the principle which
guided his reasoning was Peripatetic in origin. It is the prin­
ciple enunciated a little further on, that actual being is
necessarily anterior to potential being. “ How could poten­
tial being become actual being, were there no cause to effect
its passing into actuality” (ibid. 4)? Intelligence as the dator
formamm is then Aristotle’s pure act, that is to say, Being
realized in its full and complete perfection.
According to this view, being is placed, at least abstractly,
before Intelligence. But because being thus defined is being
in its perfection, it is at the same time Intelligence. This point
is o f importance, and Plotinus insists upon it often. We are

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to proceed from being to thought and not from thought to

being. Being is thought because it exists; it does not exist
because it is thought. Plotinus protested vigorously against
an idealistic interpretation, previously foreseen and criti­
cized by Plato in the Parmenides. “ It is not because one has
thought the quiddity o f justice that justice was bom; and it
is not because one has thought the quiddity o f movement
that movement exists. The thought o f the object would have
to be both posterior to the object thought and yet also an­
terior, were the object to derive its existence from this
thought. . . . It is absurd to say that justice is nothing but its
own definition. . . . And if one were to reply that ‘in imma­
terial beings, knowledge is identical with its object/4 we
must understand this formula not in the sense that knowledge
is the object and that the reason surveying the object is the
object itself, but inversely, in the sense that the object, be­
cause it is immaterial, is both an intelligible being and a
thought; not that it is a thought, such as its definition would
be or the representation that one may have o f it, but that,
being the intelligible, it is itself nothing but Intelligence and
knowledge” (vi. 6. 6).
Likewise, “ it is inaccurate to say that things are thoughts,
if we interpret it in the sense that a thing becomes or is what
it is after Intelligence has conceived it” (v. 9. 7). We must
say that being comes first and that Intelligence comes next
(vi. 6. 8).
But in another sense we may say, on the contrary, that
because being is actual being, it is, in substance, thought and
Intelligence. In fact, being in its plenitude, actual being, is at
the same time the reason for being. “ I f we explore each form
in its relation to itself, we shall find its cause within it. I f this
4 An Aristotelian formula, repeated often by Plotinus.

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form were inert and lifeless, it would not possess within itself
its cause. But since it is a form which belongs to Intelligence,
whence would it derive its cause? Would it be from In­
telligence? But it is not separated from Intelligence, since it
is itself Intelligence. . . . Yonder the cause o f being is prior
to being or rather simultaneous with it. It is not cause o f be­
ing, but manner o f being; or rather, cause and manner o f
being are one and the same.. .. I f being is perfect, we can­
not say what defect it has nor, consequendy, why it does not
exist” (vi. 7. 2).
But if the intelligible is the cause o f being because it is
being in its fulness, it is a thought. The intelligibles “ are in­
deed thoughts, since they are reasons” (iii. 8. 8). The cause
o f being can be conceived only as an act o f contemplation.
Thus the Aristotelian analysis leads Plotinus gradually
from form to essence and from essence to Intelligence.

The philosophical theory o f Intelligence

offers an answer, finally, to some preoccupations o f a rather
diffèrent order. To understand this thoroughly we must bear
in mind the long tradition in Greek philosophy which con­
nected the problem o f Intelligence with the cosmological
problem. In Anaxagoras, however little informed we may
be concerning his doctrine, it is certain that he considered
Intelligence, above all, as the cause o f movement. Intelligence
is, according to him, a being which knows and which
moves. In Aristotle, the whole reason for existence and the
essence o f his supreme God, “ the thought o f thought,” con­
sists in being the unmoved mover o f the world. I f Aristotle
admitted, according to certain interpreters o f his doctrine
and especially according to Plotinus, who criticized him for
it (v. 1. 9), a plurality o f intelligences at the summit o f things,
it is because each celestial sphere, possessing its own and in-

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dependent movement, needs a particular mover. With the

Stoics likewise, Intelligence is, above all, a cosmic principle,
a reason which comprises within it every detail o f the uni­
verse.
This connection between the problem o f Intelligence and
cosmological problems is rooted ultimately in the nature o f
the religious thought o f the Greeks. The apotheosis o f
Intelligence belongs to the history o f religious ideas just
as much as to that o f philosophical ideas; it is only a
moment in the development o f their mythology. Intelli­
gence, as cosmic principle, concentrates and sums up in itself
all the naturalism o f the religion o f the Greeks. Even when
it is transcendent to the world, it remains the universal cos­
mic force which possesses meaning only in its relation to the
world. It represents the naturalistic myth in its final stage o f
abstraction.
N ow the notion o f Intelligence in Plotinus is thoroughly
imbued with naturalism. Intelligence is a god, a manifold
god who contains all the others. But why? Because it is the
model o f the world o f sense. “ We admire the world o f sense
for its grandeur and beauty, the order o f its eternal move­
ment, the gods, visible and invisible, which it contains . . .
but let us mount to its archetype and to its veritable reality.
There let us contemplate all the intelligibles which in their
own right possess eternity, intimate knowledge o f themselves
and life. Let us contemplate pure Intelligence which is their
fountainhead, and the infinite wisdom and life o f the God
which is Satiety and Intelligence. For it embraces in itself
every immortal being, all Intelligence, all divinity, all Soul,
eternally unchanging” (ibid. 4).
Intelligence, viewed as the intelligible world, is an ideal
transposition o f the world o f sense. It is the world o f sense

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minus its materiality, that is to say, minus change (the eternal

having replaced time) and minus the mutual exteriority o f
the parts. More precisely, it is related to the world o f sense
as the Stoics represented it. Their theory o f sympathy was
fully accepted by Plotinus. This sympathy, which is a strict
interdependence o f the parts o f the world, is based less upon
their mechanical relationships than upon their resemblances.
In Plotinus’ physics every being acts upon its like, in spite
o f the distance which separates them. I f we assume this sym­
pathy heightened and carried to the limit, we shall arrive
at the unity which constitutes Intelligence. The intelligible
world is a world in which “ all is transparent, there is nothing
obscure or resistant. There, every being is manifest to every
other being even in its inmost depths; for light is manifest
to light. Every being contains all things within itself and
sees all things in the other. All is everywhere. All is all. Each
being is all. . . . Yonder, the sun is all the stars, and each o f
them is the sun. . . . A different characteristic stands out in
each being; but all the characteristics are manifested too. . . .
Here below, one part proceeds from another part, and each
thing is fragmentary. Yonder, every being proceeds each in­
stant from the whole, and it is both particular and univer­
sal” (v. 8. 4).
The following image, typically Plotinian in style, will en­
able us to see more clearly the extent to which Intelligence
is considered in Plotinus a kind o f concentration o f the world.
“ Let us suppose that in our visible world each part remains
what it is without confusion but that all together they form
a whole, so that if one o f them is present, for example, the
sphere o f the fixed stars, the presence o f the sun and the other
stars follows immediately. One thus sees in it, as i f exhibited
upon a transparent sphere, the earth, the sea, and all living

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creatures; actually then, one sees everything in it. Let there

be then, in the mind, the representation o f such a sphere. . . .
Keep its image and imagine another similar sphere, leaving
out the idea o f mass, differences o f position, and the idea o f
matter, and do not be satisfied by representing to yourself
a second sphere smaller than the first. . . . God comes then,
bringing his own world with all the gods which dwell in it.
All are each and each is all; united together, they are different
in their powers; but they constitute one single being with a
power o f many facets” (ibid. 9).
Intelligence appears here very clearly as a sort o f fusion
and union o f all cosmic realities, a union which is more inti­
mate than is possible in the material world, and o f which the
sympathy existing between the parts o f the visible world is
a faint image.
Here we reach the point where the Stoic theory o f univer­
sal sympathy is transformed into a theory which we might
call, following the name it took in Leibniz, monadism. The
sympathetic connection affirmed between beings is possible
only if each being is a thought and if it is itself a universe.
Then each being contains all the others. Plotinus examined
thoroughly the claims o f this theory. He saw that there could
be differences between the parts o f the intelligible world, al­
though each contained the universe. It contains the universe
in its own way, because, in each, “ there stands out” a differ­
ent aspect. From Intelligence emanate the intelligences which
are each all things and which are nevertheless multiple be­
cause they are more or less obscure thoughts (iii. 8. 8).
The bond o f dependence between beings becomes then a
bond o f a purely intellectual nature. The intelligences are to
the supreme Intelligence and to each other what the theo­
rems o f a given science are to that science as a whole and to

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each other. Each theorem contains all others potentially, al­

though it is different from them (v. 9. 9). The law which
connects the intelligences turns out to be the essential ground
o f their being. “ Real beings exist neither before nor after
Intelligence; but it is like the legislator or rather the very law
o f their existence” (ibid. 5).
I f Intelligence is such, we understand why Plotinus re­
garded it as the highest form o f life. “ The truest life is such
by virtue o f thought. . . . The first life is the first thought.
. . . Contemplation and the object o f contemplation are both
living things and are lives” (iii. 8. 8). Intelligence is not a
system o f abstract relations, o f concepts constituting a hier­
archy. It is the fulness o f being and satiety. Plotinus never
wearied o f giving the most sensuous descriptions o f Intelli­
gence. Sensations, far from disappearing in it, are combined,
on the contrary, and become richer in it. Intelligence is “ like
a single quality which contains and preserves in itself all the
others, sweetness with fragrance, in which the savor o f wine
is united with all other savors and colors. It possesses all the
qualities which are perceived through touch and also through
hearing, since it is itself all tunes and every rhythm” (vi.
7. 12).
A conception so rich runs the risk o f succumbing to its
very richness. It is the Platonic Idea, in which intellectual
values are bound up with aesthetic and moral values. Like
Aristotle’s God, it is the essence and the reason o f things.
It is the sympathetic unity o f the parts o f the world, as this
unity was conceived by the Stoics. Thus there appear in it
elements with very different aspects and even o f quite con­
trary inspiration. We must examine how Plotinus attempted
to unite them.

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The hypostasis o f Intelligence appears, in

Plotinus, under the triple aspect o f a world o f Ideas (Plato),
the source o f forms (Aristotle), and a system o f monads
(Stoic theory o f sympathy). On this basis, the theory o f In­
telligence is the affirmation o f the reality o f the intellectual,
moral, and aesthetic values which rule the world o f sense and
the judgment we pass upon it.
But this is only one aspect o f the theory. Plotinus’ atten­
tion was definitely attracted by those states o f spiritual con­
centration in which the knowing subject becomes identified
with its object and becomes, so to speak, vision pure and
simple. Is not all knowledge to some degree a falling short
o f that perfect state? All knowledge rests upon a more or
less complete assimilation between the knower and the
known, sensation itself included. “ It is because vision is light
and one with light that it sees light” (v. 3. 8). Intelligence
denotes properly a state in which this assimilation is com­
plete, in which object is not different from subject. It is the
knowledge o f self to which all other knowledge tends, as
toward an ideal. “ One may think about some other object.
One may also think o f one’s self, an act which brings about
a further escape from duality. In the first case one could de­
sire also to think o f one’s self, but one is not capable o f it.
One indeed possesses within one’s self the object o f one’s
vision, but it is an object different from self. The being which
sees itself is not separated from its essence, and, because it is
one with itself, it sees itself It and its object form but a single
being. It thinks in the strictest sense because it possesses what
it thinks. It thinks in the primitive sense o f the term” (v. 6.1).
The state o f concentration, in which we become internal to
ourselves, is only an imitation in the Soul o f that state o f In­
telligence. “ It is the illumination o f Intelligence which causes

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the Soul to turn to itself and prevents it from dissipating.”

As for Intelligence, it is, so to speak, the limit o f this con­
centration. “ Intelligence is the primal light which illumines
itself from the beginning, brightness turned toward itself, at
once light giving and lit. It is the true intelligible being which
thinks as well as is thought, is seen by itself, needs nothing
else, and in its seeing is sufficient unto itself; for that which
it sees is itself” (v. 3. 8).
In order to understand this duality in the conception o f
Intelligence, I shall try first to look for its source in the Greek
tradition. N ow the ideal o f knowledge in Greek thought is
definitely twofold. On the one hand, the first attempts o f
Greek thought since the theogony o f Hesiod consisted o f an
endeavor to classify the forms o f reality and to discover the
rational order according to which they are subordinated to
one another. On the other hand, with the movement which
sprang from Socrates a new ideal appeared. Wisdom is first
o f all knowledge o f the self and o f its own powers. The ob­
ject o f knowledge is not distinct from the subject which
knows. Epictetus5 distinguished two kinds o f knowledge,
one whose object is different in kind from the subject which
knows it, such as the knowledge possessed by the shoemaker
or grammarian, and the bodies o f knowledge in which the
object is the same in kind as the subject. Such is wisdom.
Wisdom is a good and is at the same time knowledge o f a
good. Wisdom is reason capable o f contemplating itself
(deuprjTixbs aurov).
But in Greek philosophy these two types o f knowledge
did not remain distinct and did not give birth to two distinct
groups o f sciences, such as the moral and the physical sci­
ences. Mind was not declared to be separate from nature, any
5 Discourses i. 20.

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more than mind affirmed nature to be separate from itself.

Ever since Plato, there has been a continual compromise be­
tween these two tendencies. Not only are the physical sci­
ences permeated with human values, the idea o f harmony
and o f purposiveness, but the first principle o f nature is, at
the same time, the being in which the self-knowledge laid
down by Socrates as the ideal o f human wisdom is realized
perfectly. The prime mover is, in Aristotle, the “ thought o f
thought.” Reason, which to the Stoics is natural law itself
or fate, is above all a being engaged in contemplation o f
itself The principle o f things, the first link in the natural
order, is merely a hypostasis o f self-knowledge.
We readily see the danger o f this fusion. Intelligence, in­
stead o f being realized in a system o f clear and distinct no­
tions, becomes a spiritual attitude, rich in meaning for the
spiritual life but useless for scientific knowledge.
I should like to show how, in Plotinus, the conception o f
Intelligence as the rational order o f things was modified and
transformed radically through the conception o f Intelligence
as spiritual attitude and contemplation. The moment he con­
ceives Intelligence as a purely formal spiritual attitude, an
accord with self, is he not forced to empty it o f every object
which would obstruct it in its conversion upon itself and
would force it to direct itself outwardly? The richness o f
the intelligible world arose from its splitting-up into ideas
and from the determinateness o f these ideas. Does not this
splitting-up and this determinateness render the direct con­
tact o f Intelligence with itself altogether impossible?

This question presents itself to Plotinus in

an extremely clear form, and he solves it unequivocally.
Briefly, the question is to know how we are to interpret

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Platonism, whether we are to admit that the Ideas are exter­

nal to Intelligence which contemplates them, and whether
the Ideas are like external archetypes o f the sensible things
which imitate them. To answer the first question in the affir­
mative forces Intelligence to come out o f itself in order to
know. It is then no longer essentially self-knowledge. To an­
swer the second question in the affirmative is to admit Ideas
in the intelligible being, a fragmentation corresponding to
that o f sensible things, and, consequently, to impede intel­
lectual knowledge.
N ow these solutions were those o f traditional Platonism,
and we see, through the perusal o f the Enneads as in the Life
of Plotinus by Porphyry, that Plotinus had to struggle over
this point against the very set opinions o f most o f his dis­
ciples.
Concerning the subject o f the transcendence o f the Ideas,
Plotinus expounded the interpretation o f Plato which he op­
posed, indicating the texts o f the Timaeus upon which this
interpretation rested. “ Plato has said: ‘Intelligence sees the
Ideas which exist in the animal in itself/ and then—the text
proceeds—the Demiurge judged that this universe ought to
contain the things that Intelligence sees in the animal in it­
self/ He thus says that the Ideas are antecedent to Intelligence
and that they exist when Intelligence thinks them. Let us
first inquire whether this being (I mean the animal in itself)
is Intelligence or whether it is different from Intelligence.
That which contemplates it is Intelligence. The animal in it­
self is therefore not Intelligence but the intelligible, and that
which Intelligence perceives is outside o f itself” (iii. 9. i).6
6 It is true that Heinemann (Plotitt, pp. 19 if!) has contested the authen­
ticity o f this treatise. But the principal reason he gives for it is that the pas­
sage which I have cited and which is at the beginning asserts an opinion

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Such is the traditional exegesis which is most commonly

accepted even today. Plotinus wrote an entire treatise against
it, the fifth o f the fifth Ennead. He concerned himself, just as
Descartes did at the beginning o f his Meditations, with the
formal condition o f intellectual knowledge. This condition
is evidence, unfailing evidence which must always be con­
nected with it. N ow the evidence supplied by the senses is
untrustworthy because it applies perhaps only to our own
impressions or, at least, because it perceives only the images
o f objects and not the objects themselves. If now we repre­
sent the intelligibles as transcendent and external to Intelli­
gence, whether we intend it or not, we shall be describing
intellectual knowledge in terms o f sense-knowledge. It will
be an accidental knowledge acquired at random, a knowl­
edge which possesses not the realities but impressions o f
them, and which, consequently, can attain reality only by
a process o f reasoning which may be wrong. Besides, if we
admit that Intelligence does not possess the intelligibles, we
admit at the same time that the intelligibles do not possess
Intelligence. W e must then imagine the intelligible, the sub­
ject matter o f thought, as a series o f discrete terms separated
from one another, such as beauty, justice, etc.—scattered ele­
ments which Intelligence seeks and assembles. Intelligence
then becomes discursive thought, which functions only in
formulating propositions. Finally, the intelligence, which
possesses only images o f reality, will either know it and rec­
ognize its error or be unaware o f it and exist in illusion.
But i f the intelligible must exist in Intelligence, we must
indeed understand the counterpart o f this thesis, namely, that
directly contrary to the doctrine o f Plotinus. N o w this is indeed natural,
since here, follow ing his usual procedure o f instruction, Plotinus first ex­
pounds the exegesis which he is going to refute later.

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the intelligible is fused with Intelligence itself. “ Essential

truth is not agreement with another thing, but agreement
with itself. Truth affirms nothing but itself. It is, and it
affirms its being.” Intelligence is then an immediate passage
from thought to being, but to the very being o f thought. To
affirm the immanence o f the intelligible in this sense is not
to denote a simple difference with traditional Platonism. It
is its exact opposite. It is denying any diversity in the intelli­
gible world.
Such is the analysis o f this interesting treatise which we
may consider as the point o f departure for the line o f thought
which issues in the Cartesian cogito.
The discussion o f Plato’s theory o f Ideas embodies a quite
similar exegesis. What do we mean exactly when we make
the intelligible world the model o f the sensible world? We
are, usually, duped by the imagination, which distinguishes
and divides. “ W e first pose a sensible reality, and we place
within the intelligible the being which must exist every­
where. Then, imagining the sensible as an immense space,
we ask ourselves how the intelligible nature can extend into
a thing so vast” (vi. 4. 2). Here Plotinus has in view an alto­
gether materialistic and imaginative interpretation o f par­
ticipation, the very one that Plato, it appears, criticized at
the beginning o f the Parmenides and which would result in
rendering participation unintelligible by completely sepa­
rating the sensible from the intelligible.
But Plotinus does so in order to arrive at a theory in which
the notion o f exemplars disappears completely, because the
intelligible world, with all its richness and its diversity, is
reabsorbed into a universal and undifferentiated being. In
this universal being “ completely filled with itself, identical
with itself, which is in being, and which is therefore also in

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itself” (ibid.), o f which we learn in the fourth and fifth trea­

tises o f the sixth Enneady we clearly recognize this transparent
Intelligence o f which I have just now spoken, but no longer
the world o f articulated notions o f which Plato speaks.
Thus participation is not imitation. “ The higher nature is
present everywhere in its entirety, but it is not evident be­
cause the subject is incapable o f receiving it” (vi. 5. 12). The
Ideas are not at all isolated beings from which powers ema­
nate, spacially distinct from them. A power can exist only
where the being exists from which it emanates. “ The uni­
versal being is present as a single life. We assimilate ourselves
to it in remaining with no particular being but in leaving all
limits behind in order to become the universal being. The
addition does not come from being but from non-being. It
is through this addition that one becomes something”
(ibid.). Thus the diversity o f beings, far from having its
ground in the Intelligible being, arises from a limitation and
an incapacity which are peculiar to them.
We see that in this interpretation o f Platonism, Intelligence
has ceased to be in Plotinus what the Idea was in Plato and
form in Aristotle, an instrument o f knowledge, the point o f
departure o f a progressive synthesis. It is the very value o f
rational knowledge which is attacked. Knowledge, in so far
as it requires a plurality o f ideas linked together, exists only
in a degraded form o f Intelligence, in discursive thought.
Neoplatonism appears to us, in this respect, as an offensive
return o f very ancient ideas, a return to “ prelogical think­
ing” which confounds all distinct representations.
In Plotinus the intellectual life is quite formal. It is the
sense o f self-evidence, the sort “ o f intellectual euphoria,” ac­
cording to the expression o f Goblot (.Logique, p. 24), “ which
accompanies unobstructed activity.”

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 Intelligence

Thus I admit (at least partially, as will appear later) the

conclusions o f Eucken on this subject. There is indeed no
longer, in Plotinus, any objective knowledge in the accepted
sense o f the term. Knowledge “ as immediate union with
things is transformed into an obscure emotion, a vital feeling
without form, an intangible Stimmung. Intellectualism has
destroyed itself through its own exaggeration.’*

Nevertheless, this is an incomplete and

one-sided view. At the same time that Plotinianism put an
end to one movement o f ideas, it ushered in another. It may
be considered as the true forerunner o f the idealistic doc­
trines which pose spirit as a concrete and substantial reality,
affirming itself through itself independently o f things. Such
are the philosophies o f St. Augustine, Descartes, and Hegel.
Although they differ widely, they all owe allegiance directly
or indirectly to Plotinus. In the passages in which Plotinus
refers to (as a type o f evidence far superior to sense evidence)
the evidence o f thought which thinks itself and which knows
itself only as thought, we sense for the first time in the history
o f philosophical doctrines the preoccupations which are to
give birth to the metaphysics o f Descartes.
The fact is that there is something else in the affirmation
o f thought through itself than the affirmation o f an empty
identity in which every difference disappears. It signifies also
that Intelligence is a dynamic principle which cannot be fixed
in any concrete and arrested form.
Intelligence, as thought o f itself, is in Plotinus the principle
o f a constructive dialectic, and this is why he repeats the fol­
lowing formula so often: “ To think one’s self is to think all
things.” Dialectic is, in contradistinction to logic—the prac-

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tical technique which deals only with the propositions and

rules o f reasoning—a natural science which bears upon reali­
ties. “ It checks our wanderings through sensible things in
establishing itself in the intelligible and limiting its activity
to it. . . . It uses the Platonic method o f division to discern
the species o f a genus, to define and to arrive at the principal
genera. Through thought, it forms complex combinations
o f these genera until it has traversed the whole domain o f the
intelligible. Then, through an inverse movement, that o f
analysis, it returns to the principle” (i. 3. 4).
N ow if we desire to look for the motivating force o f this
dialectic in Plotinus, we shall discover it in the fact that it is
impossible for thought to stop at a definite limit whatever
it may be. To fix attention upon a specific object o f con­
templation is to stop thinking. “ If one does not progress
toward a different state, one will come to a halt, and once
halted one will cease to think” (v. 3.10 ). In consequence, the
whole o f thought, thought o f itself, is the goal o f the move­
ment which produces successively the thought o f all things.
This dialectic is, first, a progressive determination of
classes from the prime genera to the lowest species. “ Within
the one figure [or pattern] o f Intelligence, which is like an
inclosure, there are inner inclosures which limit still other
figures within them; here there exist powers, thoughts, and
a subdivision which does not extend in a straight line but
which divides Intelligence inwardly—like a living universe
which comprises other animals, then still others, down to the
animals and to the powers which have the least extension,
that is to say, to the indivisible species, where it rests” (vi.
7. 14). Each decrease in extension is thus offset by a sort of
counterbalance, through an increase in our comprehension.
“ In proportion as Intelligence goes down on one side, it rises

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on the other side; it needs only itself to find within itself a

remedy for the defects inherent in Seings” (ibid. 9).
This conception o f dialectic as the classification o f beings
is rather barren and trivial in itself. It takes on interest
through the insistence with which Plotinus calls attention
to its indefinitely progressive character. “ There is infinity in
Intelligence” (ibid. 14). To this side o f the Plotinian dialectic
is connected the curious theory o f intelligible matter, which
merely brings to light this infinity o f Intelligence (ii. 4).
Finally, there is a thesis which must have appeared most
paradoxical to the orthodox Platonists and which leads
to clarifying the relation between Plotinus’ dialectic and
thought directed toward itself. It is the thesis that “ there
are ideas o f individual things,” to which Plotinus devoted
a short treatise, namely, the seventh o f the fifth Ennead. In
what does its significance consist? “ I f I rise toward the in­
telligible,” he says, “ it is because my source is above.” The
reasoning, we see, is derived from the natural disposition o f
the individual to rise, through thought, to the intelligible
world. But whence comes this natural disposition itself? It
arises because, fundamentally, the individual is all things.
The soul o f an individual contains the same reasons as the
universe. He is then fitted to be assimilated to the universal
being. It is in this way that the individual may find both his
real being and the universal being through thought directed
toward itself. Plotinian dialectic thus sets forth its full
meaning. Since it considers Intelligence as thought directed
toward itself, it cannot limit the intelligible to generic con­
cepts. The intelligible is this self itself, which, pursuing its
course through the general concepts, is content with no ab­
stract determination and is satisfied only when it has found
itself in its infinity. “ For we must not fear the infinity which
our thesis introduces into the intelligible world.”

10 5
 THE ORIENTALISM OF

PLOTINUS

The double aspect o f Plotinus’ notion o f

Intelligence raises an extremely delicate question and one
which perhaps cannot be solved completely. It concerns
Oriental influences upon Plotinus’ thought. W e recall in
what this duality consists. On the one hand, Intelligence is an
articulated system o f definite notions. On the other hand, it
is the universal being in whose bosom every difference is
absorbed, in which every distinction between subject and
object comes to a complete end. In the first respect, it ex­
presses the rationalist thesis that it is possible to have a knowl­
edge o f the world and that reality can be grasped through
reason. In the second respect, it involves the mystical ideal o f
the complete unification o f beings in the Godhead, with the
feeling o f intuitive evidence which accompanies it (vi. 7 .15 ).
N ow we readily see the sources and understand the nature
o f the first o f these two conceptions. It expresses the result o f
Plotinus’ exegesis o f the Hellenic systems o f Plato, Aristotle,
and the Stoics, systems in which we are versed. But this is not
at all the case with the second. N o doubt Plotinus tried to
attach it to a Hellenic origin. This is quite natural in a philos­
opher who professed to be only an interpreter o f Greek

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thought. Besides, Greek philosophy furnished him the means

for it. Intelligence, for Greek philosophers, is not only the
faculty through which we know objects but the faculty
through which we know ourselves. And knowledge o f self
appears as the goal o f philosophy and the highest degree o f
reality.
However, did Plotinus limit himself to affirming the latter
conception o f Intelligence? Is his theory o f Intelligence
simply the Greek conception developed in a single direction?
W e should thus arrive at the conclusion, singular to say the
least, that the mysticism o f Plotinus is only the abuse o f
Greek rationalism and its termination. Intelligence, in com­
muning with itself, sees only itself in its own universality.
This is the conclusion o f Eucken and o f those who, at any
cost, wish to see in the system o f Plotinus the result o f an in­
ternal development o f Greek thought.
N ow we must first explain why this aspect o f Intelligence,
which dissolved Greek rationalism, prevailed over the other.
Such an explanation is possible only by circumstances re­
lated to certain entirely new mental habits, bom o f religious
beliefs the origin o f which was in the Orient, outside o f
Hellenism. Moreover, it is not accurate to concede that, in
affirming that Intelligence is thought directed toward itself,
Plotinus has simply rendered conspicuous a notion already
existent in Greek philosophy. We must not be deceived by
the resemblance o f formulas. Knowledge o f self, in Epicte­
tus, for example, retains an entirely rational meaning and is
completely devoid o f the mystical. It is the knowledge o f the
moral capacities that we possess within ourselves, the con­
sciousness that we acquire from the ability to use our repre­
sentations and thus to become masters o f ourselves.1 Between
1 Discourses i. 20.

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this moralistic conception which is related to the Socratic

tendency, and the Plotinian conception according to which
thought o f self is consciousness o f our own identity with the
universal being, there is a world o f difference. It is not the
exaggeration o f this thesis. It is something different, and it is
impossible to conceive through what transmutation we may
pass from one to the other.
With respect to the problem o f Intelligence, I am then
inevitably led to put a question whose solution may clarify
what remains to be explained in the system o f Plotinus. What
does the system contain which is foreign to Greek philoso­
phy? What is the nature and the source o f the ideas which in
Plotinus did not originate in Greek philosophy?
This is the famous question o f the Orientalism o f Plotinus,
a question with which all who have concerned themselves
with his philosophy must grapple, were it only to solve it by
finding that there are no grounds for it. Besides, answering
this question is o f far greater interest than the exposition o f
the system o f Plotinus. It was through Plotinus that, direcdy
or indirecdy, Hellenic ideas entered the Occident. It is im­
portant, therefore, to try to determine whether or not he in­
troduced, together with Hellenism, intellectual currents o f
a different sort.
Let us attempt to state the question precisely. The doctrine
o f Plotinus is certainly permeated with Hellenism. Plotinus
lived with Aristotle and especially with Plato, whom he
quoted continually. The concepts which he used to represent
reality were those o f Greek philosophy. His conception o f
the world o f sense sprang alike from the astronomy and
physics o f the Timaeus and from the Stoic system o f physics.
The same is true o f his conception o f the intelligible world,
which is parallel to that o f the world o f sense and which in-

10 #
 The Orientalism of Plotinus

eludes the Soul qua cosmic force. There is perfect unity with­
in this body o f conceptions. Furthermore, Plotinus borrowed
the myth o f the destiny o f the Soul and its successive rein­
carnations from Plato.
However, how did it happen that, though conceiving
reality altogether according to the outlines which he in­
herited from his Hellenic training, he raised problems which
were never raised by the thinkers to whom he referred? How
did it happen that, in order to solve them, he was led to place
new images alongside the traditional ones?
Let us consider in Plotinus not the representation o f the
world which was imposed upon him by his training and
which he accepted without questioning, but the problems
which for him were the living issues, and we shall readily see
that they were outside the Hellenic tradition.
All these problems reduce in the main to one: the relation
o f the particular being, o f whose existence we are con­
scious, to the universal being. How did the conscious self,
with its characteristics, its union with a fixed body, its facul­
ties o f memory and reasoning, emerge from the universal
being and form itself in a distinct center? What is the relation
o f individual souls to the universal Soul? In general, how is
the universal being present in its entirety in all things without
ceasing meanwhile to be universal?
To be sure, these problems are in one sense the problems
o f Greek philosophy. The question o f the relations o f the par­
ticular to the universal certainly is one o f the most important
subjects o f discussion in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.
But in Plotinus these problems possess a different meaning.
Let us consider, for example, the conception o f fate in the
Stoics, according to whom fate is the universal law which
connects all particular beings. This is a conception which

tog
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

satisfies both reason and morality. On the one hand, it as­

serts the rational order o f the world, and, on the other hand,
it furnishes the principle o f the conduct o f the sage and o f his
voluntary submission to the order o f things, the submission
which sets us free. Quite different is the Plotinian conception
o f the relation o f the individual to the universal being. It is
no longer a rational unity which he is seeking but a mystical
unification in which individual consciousness is to disappear.
Individual consciousness arises from a limit, and, as Plotinus
says (vi. 5. 12), from non-being. “ It is through non-being
that you have become someone.” But in becoming con­
scious o f what we really are, this individual consciousness
will disappear, and we shall find that we are identical with the
universal being. Freed from all individuality, “ you no longer
say concerning yourself: ‘this is what I am.’ You leave be­
hind every limit in order to become the universal being.
And yet you were it from the very beginning. But as you
were something besides, this surplus reduced you. For this
surplus came not from being (since nothing can be added to
being) but from non-being.”
It is evident that we are dealing here no longer, to any ex­
tent, with a rational explanation but rather with an experi­
ence. The “ true knowledge” o f which Plotinus speaks (ibid,
7) is only an immediate intuition o f the unity o f beings. “ In
participating in true knowledge, we are real beings. We do
not receive them into ourselves, but we exist in them. And
as others as well as ourselves are beings, we are, all together,
real beings and we all are but one.” “ We are not separated
from being, but we exist in it. And it is not separated from
us. All beings constitute but one being” (ibid. 4).
From this way o f conceiving the problem arises the im-

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 The Orientalism of Plotinus

portance which the notion o f consciousness and o f the self

assumed in Plotinus but which passed almost unnoticed in
the works o f the earlier Greek philosophers. This was so be­
cause all his preoccupations were concerned with the con­
scious individual. The problem is to comprehend how a
distinct individuality could proceed from the universal being
and how it can be reabsorbed into it. The question o f the
conditions o f individual consciousness comes into the fore­
ground. Hence, as I have noted, the modifications to which
he subjects the Platonic myth o f the descent o f souls. Instead
o f the wandering and hovering being which in Plato de­
scends from heaven to earth, the Soul, according to Plotinus,
remains eternally linked to Intelligence or to the universal
being, and the self which becomes isolated in the body is a
passing reflection which does not impair the universality o f
the essence o f the Soul.
It is not the Plotinian conception o f the world but the na­
ture o f the problems he raised which compels us to recognize
in Plotinus a scheme o f thought which is quite different from
the Hellenic scheme. These problems are not at all bound up
with his conception o f the world. Where Plotinus speaks o f
the identity o f ourselves with the universal being, it appears
that he forgets completely the skilful architecture o f the
hypostases. His conception o f reality becomes quite sum­
mary. It is no longer a question o f an elaborate intelligible
world, the outlines o f which furnish the model for the world
o f sense, but o f a universal being with no inner differentia­
tion. The fourth and fifth treatises o f the sixth Ennead, for
example, can easily be read without any reference to Greek
philosophy. The question concerning the origin o f these ideas
then requires consideration.

in
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

It is not a sufficient answer simply to speak

in general terms o f the current o f mysticism which for two
centuries had penetrated the Greco-Roman world. The mys­
ticism o f Plotinus has, in fact, an altogether special nuance
which distinguishes it profoundly from that o f the Oriental
religions in vogue during his time. In spite o f the accusation
o f plagiarism brought against him by certain adversaries, we
must bear in mind the impression o f novelty and sometimes
o f strangeness which his ideas produced. For example,
against the Neoplatonism current in his time, that o f Apule-
ius or o f Albinus, which placed a countless host o f gods and
daemons between the soul and the supreme God, Plotinus
asserted: “ Seek God with assurance, for He is not far away
and you will attain unto Him. The intermediaries are not
numerous. It suffices to lay hold, in the soul which is divine,
o f the part which is the most divine” (v. i. 3).
One can generalize upon this statement. The system o f
Plotinus differs in principle from all the philosophical sys­
tems and religions o f his time because o f the almost complete
absence o f the idea o f a mediator or savior destined to bring
man into relation with God. “ Intellectual endowment,” he
remarks, “ is not like a transferable gift.” It is the Soul itself
which, through its development, becomes Intelligence and,
having reached its destination, is no longer separated from
the One. The divine beings toward which the Soul tends
manifest no will, spontaneous or deliberate, to lead it back
to them. The very idea o f salvation, which implies a media­
tor sent by God to man, is foreign to him.2
2 These pages were written before the very fine publication o f the Her­
metic writings, Hermetica, by W alter Scott (4 vols.; O xford: Clarendon
Press, 1924-36). This edition and the expositions it contains give, for the
first time, an idea o f the religious m ovement from which derives the mass
o f anonymous little treatises most o f which date from the times o f A m m o-

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 The Orientalism of Plotinus

In this respect the religiosity o f Plotinus differs radically

from that o f Philo o f Alexandria, with whom attempts have
been made to connect him. O f little consequence here are
the numerous resemblances in detail that one can discover
between their works. The leading idea o f the doctrine o f
Philo is that o f a Logos, o f a saving Word, whose mission it
is to guide man in his efforts toward the Good. This idea is
accompanied by a devotion constituted by lyrical effusions,
prayers, and thanksgiving, which constantly emphasize the
emptiness o f man when left to his own powers.
However, there is nothing like that in Plotinus. Piety, in
the usual sense of the word, is almost absent in him. Prayer,
which barely appears in a few isolated texts—while it is so
common not only in Alexandrian Judaism but in the last
pagan philosophers—is reduced either to an inner concentra­
tion o f the Soul which seeks its own essence or to a magical
formula which inevitably produces its effect, not because
the gods have willed it, but in virtue o f the sympathy which
binds the parts o f the world together (iv. 4. jo f f .) . But
prayer never has a personal note. It never expresses an inti­
mate relation o f the soul with a higher person.
When some later Neoplatonists, like Iamblichus or Julian
the Apostate, tried to graft a religion upon Neoplatonism to
oppose Christianity, they were either unfaithful to the
thought o f their master, or they failed completely. Julian the
Apostate, for example, was a person initiated in the mysteries
o f Mithra, and, in trying to propagate the cult o f the Sun

nius Saccas and o f Plotinus. Although, as the editor shows, a perfect unity
o f doctrine does not exist in these treatises, one is impressed in finding the
same characteristic which separates Plotinus from all the religions o f salva­
tion, namely, the union with God through mere contemplation or intuition
and the absence o f any intermediary w ho would become responsible for
this union.

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Savior, he merely attempted to substitute another mediator

for Christ. With the name o f Iamblichus is linked the de­
velopment o f the practices o f magic which, little by little,
came to occupy a notable place in the expiring Neoplaton­
ism; witness, for example, the Life of Isidorus, written by
Damascius. The Neoplatonism o f Plotinus is distinguished
then from the other religious movements o f the time by its
inability to give birth to a genuine religious community, in
spite o f the inclinations o f some o f its partisans.
When Plotinus was associated with Ammonius, he tells
us that “ he had learned so much in philosophy, that he want­
ed to get a first-hand knowledge o f the philosophy prac­
ticed among the Persians and o f that in vogue among the In­
dians/’3 It is with this in mind that he accompanied the army
o f the emperor Gordian in his expedition against the Per­
sians. This expedition failed, moreover, and Plotinus experi­
enced great difficulty in escaping.
For a Hellenized Egyptian like Plotinus, this “ philosophy
practiced among the Persians” can only mean the mass o f
theological ideas crystallized around the cult o f Mithra. It is
the theology which Cumont has investigated and labeled
solar theology. It likens the Supreme Being to a luminous
source which emits rays that pierce and illuminate the ob­
scurity o f matter. It affirmed the transcendence o f the Su­
preme Deity, whence emanate, like rays, the souls which pro­
ceed to animate the world.
N ow we can make two observations concerning the rela­
tion o f Plotinus to this solar theology. In the first place, Plo­
tinus continually employs metaphors drawn from the reful­
gence o f a luminous source to explain the nature and action
o f the first principle. To be sure, he found the model in
Plato, in the famous comparison o f the Idea o f the Good with
3 Life o f Plotinus 3.

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 The Orientalism o f Plotinus

the sun at the end o f the sixth book o f the Republic (508).
But he often presents this metaphor with some traits which
did not come from Plato and which were not o f his invent­
ing. Thus he says: “ There are people who claim that souls
are like luminous sparks (/3oXas), with the consequence that
the being [whence they emanate] remains fixed in itself and
that the souls emitted by it correspond each to a living be­
ing ’ (vi. 4. 3).
But, and this is my second observation, Plotinus is far from
admitting the correctness o f such an image, which would re­
sult in separating being from its manifestations as two reali­
ties locally distinct. The real subject o f the fourth and fifth
treatises o f the sixth Ennead, entitled, “ That One and the
Same Being May Exist Everywhere at Once,” could be in
fact the criticism o f this solar theology. To be sure, he ad­
mits, when we desire to express the relation o f being to its
manifestations, “ we ourselves sometimes speak o f radiation.
. . . But now we must employ words which are more exact”
(vi. 5. 8).
It is strange, moreover, that in an environment so accus­
tomed to pious practices, Plotinus not only “ does not seek
God,” in conformity with the old maxims o f Stoicism, but
even recommends definitely not to seek Him. Porphyry re­
lates how he scandalized his pious friends one day: “ Amelius,
who offered up sacrifices regularly and who took pains in
celebrating the festival o f the new moon, requested Plotinus
one day to come and attend a ceremony o f this sort with him.
Plotinus replied: ‘It is for the gods to come to me, and not for
me to go to them/ We could not understand why he spoke
with so much pride, and we did not dare to ask him for his
reason.” 4
4 Life o f Plotinus 10.

**5
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

However, it seems that the reason is to be found in the

Enneads. In them he continually affirms that the universal be­
ing is everywhere and in all things. “ The divine nature is in­
finite. Therefore, it is not limited. That means that it is
never absent; and i f it is never absent, it is present in all
things” (ibid. $). It is not necessary to go in search o f the uni­
versal being as i f it were in some remote place, but merely
to feel its presence. And we feel it through a simple change
o f perspective. “ Either you are capable o f attaining it or,
rather, you already exist in the universal being, and then you
no longer seek anything; or else you renounce it, because you
lean in another direction. . . . There is no need for the uni­
versal being to come to you in order to be present. It is you
who have departed. But to depart does not consist in leaving
it in order to go elsewhere, for it is present there too. But it
consists in that you have, while remaining close to it, turned
away from it” (ibid. 12). In this theory there is no place for
religious practice. Plotinus traces his doctrine on this point
to an expression o f Plato: “ ‘God,’ says Plato, ‘is not exter­
nal to any being. He is in all beings, but they are not aware
o f it’ ” (vi. 9. 7).

So we find at the very center o f Plotinus’

thought a foreign element which defies classification. The
theory o f Intelligence as universal being derives neither from
Greek rationalism nor from the piety diffused throughout the
religious circles o f his day. This touch o f exoticism made an
impression on Plotinus’ contemporaries, as we have seen.
This is so true that the Neoplatonism subsequent to Plotinus
was not at all, as it appears in inadequate accounts, a simple
development o f the system o f Plotinus. It abandoned the
system at many points and especially in the doctrine that oc­

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cupies us here concerning the relations o f the individual soul

to the universal Soul.
Thus I am led to seek the source o f the philosophy o f Plo­
tinus beyond the Orient close to Greece, in the religious
speculations o f India, which by the time o f Plotinus had been
founded for centuries on the Upanishads and had retained
their vitality.

The arguments which have been brought

together by H. F. Müller5 against the thesis which admits
Oriental influences in Plotinus’ system are very precise but
do not hold at all against the proposition which I intend to
sustain. Müller has shown very clearly that the thought o f
Plotinus moved altogether outside the religious ideas o f the
Oriental cults prevalent at his time in the Roman Empire. He
even had an implicit hostility toward these cults. The idea o f
salvation and that o f a mediator, with the sort o f piety which
was inseparable from them, were ideas toward which Ploti­
nus manifested antipathy.
But did this feeling come, as Müller concludes, from the
deep attachment to the old ideal o f Hellenic rationalism? This
I believe is inadmissible. There is a whole side to the specu­
lation o f Plotinus which is no less foreign to Hellenism than
to the religions o f salvation. And it is not the Hellene in him
that protests against the idea o f a divine providential activity
which would deliberately exert itself in behalf o f man. Hel­
lenism can very well be reconciled with this piety and did
reconcile itself with it as, for example, in the Stoics. It is in
the name o f an entirely different religious ideal that he pro­
tests.
W e sense in Plotinus the same resistance to accepting this
5 “ Orientalisches bei Plotinos?” Hertnes, 19 14 , p. 70.

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idea which we feel in Spinoza and Schelling, who, like him

and for similar reasons, rejected the traditional ideas o f the
religion o f salvation. The opposition arose from the differ­
ence in religious sentiments. It is not because Spinoza was a
Cartesian and a rationalist that he rejected the truths o f the
Christian faith, such as the freedom o f the will or creation,
with which Descartes came to terms completely. It is be­
cause he conceived the relations between the soul and the
universal being in an altogether different way from a Chris­
tian.
With Plotinus then, we lay hold o f the first link in a re­
ligious tradition which is no less powerful basically in the
West than the Christian tradition, although it does not mani­
fest itself in the same way. I believe that this tradition comes
from India.
First, I should like to show that this hypothesis contains
nothing in itself that is strange, even if at first it ofîènds an un­
duly narrow conception o f the history o f philosophical ideas.
Historical reality is far from yielding submissively to the
categories which our mind is obliged to create in order to
study it. Civilizations never form autonomous and closed
entities. Even in antiquity, contacts between civilizations
separated through distance and by language were in fact
much more direct and numerous than we might suppose.
In particular, the Greeks o f antiquity were merchants,
great travelers and lovers o f exoticism. The Oriental civiliza­
tions, older than theirs, made an extraordinary appeal to
their imagination. Plato, for example, never grew tired o f
evering the wisdom o f the Egyptians and o f the Persians.
It is difficult and perhaps impossible to enumerate every con­
tribution o f Oriental to Greek thought.
With regard to India, we know at any rate that beginning

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with the expedition o f Alexander, the Greeks were deeply

impressed with the examples o f impassiveness and compo­
sure exhibited by Hindu ascetics whom they called the Gym-
nosophists. Victor Brochard maintains, and not without
cause, that Pyrrho, the head o f the School o f Scepticism in
the third century B.C., proposed no other practical ideal but
to imitate this asceticism. And beginning with this epoch,
the treatises o f edifying moral literature all mention the
Gymnosophist Calanus, who refused to accompany Alexan­
der to Europe and died by throwing himself upon a pyre.
Up to the time o f our era, there was considerable literature
devoted to things Indian, and Strabo has preserved some
fragments and analyses o f them in Book xv o f his Geography.
Megasthenes, in his Indica, described the system o f castes and
then expatiated at length upon those whom he called the
‘ philosophers,” who were divided, according to him, into
two classes. First, the Brahmans who “ considered everything
which cheers or grieves men as mere dreams.” They pro­
fessed a God who “ moves through the whole universe,” and
they invented myths, after the manner o f Plato, concerning
the incorruptibility o f the soul, the judgments in Hades, and
other similar things. The second class o f philosophers con­
sisted o f the Garmanes, the ascetics o f the forests who lived
in abstinence and chastity and who enioyed special relations
with the Deity (t 6 deiov).
According to Strabo, from the time o f Augustus regular
commercial relations seem to have been established between
the Western world and India through Alexandria, the Nile,
and the Arabian Gulf. The Hindus sent diplomatic missions
to Rome loaded with gifts, like the deputation to Augustus o f
which Strabo speaks, and the deputation to Emperor Helio-

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gabalus mentioned by Porphyry.6 The inquisitive person did

not fail to inquire about the customs and ideas o f the country
from which these missions came. Thus Porphyry gives us the
summary o f a treatise that Bardesanes o f Babylon had de­
voted to relating his interviews with the Hindus sent on a
mission to Heliogabalus. He deals at length with the habits
o f the Brahmins and o f the ascetics o f the forest.
It was about the same time that the romance o f Apollonius
o f Tyana was written by Philostratus. This book is the story
o f the life o f a legendary character, Apollonius o f Tyana, a
Pythagorean philosopher. N ow this romance expresses a
very keen appreciation for the things o f India. The wisdom
o f the Hindus and the Greeks, o f Pythagoras and Apollonius,
was considered superior to the wisdom so vaunted by the
Egyptians. We certainly must not take this romance o f ad­
ventures seriously, except as an indication o f a state o f mind.
Nevertheless, it does contain an interesting item which
specially concerns the present question and to which I shall
soon have occasion to refer again.

All these circumstances prevent us from

concluding that connections between the doctrine o f Plotinus
and the religious thought o f India are unlikely. I f we proceed
now to consider the conditions under which the thoughts o f
Plotinus were formulated, the likelihood o f the connections
between the two will appear to us to increase.
Unfortunately, we are very poorly informed upon this
point, since Porphyry, whose Life of Plotinus is our only
source, knew Plotinus at Rome only when his master was
fifty-seven. However, we do learn from it that Plotinus
6 Strabo Eclog. i. 3. 56; Porphyry De abstinentia iv. 17.

12 0
 The Orientalism o f Plotinus

lived at Alexandria until the age o f thirty-nine. Alexandria

was on the road which led from India to Rome, and the op­
portunity existed there, more than anywhere else, to secure
information on everything that an Occidental could under­
stand concerning the ideas o f the distant Orient.
We know on the other hand that his philosophical thought
crystallized rather late. At first he found no satisfaction in
listening to the Greek masters whom he met at Alexandria.
It was only at the age o f twenty-eight or twenty-nine that
he met the Neoplatonist philosopher Ammonius Saccas, with
whom he remained in close relations for ten or eleven years.
Plotinus does not appear then to have accepted the traditional
Hellenic instruction without hesitation or opposition.
Porphyry informs us that Plotinus had in fact a passionate
interest in barbarian philosophy, that is to say, doctrines
foreign to the Hellenic tradition.
The literary habits o f Plotinus were such that it is difficult
to find in the Enneads the direct proof o f this interest. Unlike
most o f his contemporaries, including his disciple Porphyry,
for example, he was the man who loved the least to parade
his erudition. It is through Porphyry only, for example, that
we can gain an accurate knowledge o f the Gnostics, to whom
he devoted a long refutation. However, 1 have pointed out
above some very clear allusions to the Oriental cults and to
that o f Isis in particular. Moreover, a passage in the Enneads
(v. 8. 6) proves that Plotinus tried to understand the pro­
found wisdom which, they claimed, was hidden in the
Egyptian hieroglyphs. This wisdom consists in the intuitive
and immediate knowledge o f reality, which Plotinus opposes
to discursive knowledge. The hieroglyphs “ do not imitate
the sounds o f language or verbal propositions. . . . Each sign
designates the object itself. Each sign is therefore a knowl-

12 1
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

edge and a science. It is reality itself seen at a single glance,

and not reflected through discursive thought.”
This passage indicates also what Plotinus was going to seek
in the barbarians: their conception o f reality, the living in­
tuition which the scholarly and involved constructions o f
Greek philosophy ran the risk o f losing.
This taste for exoticism was, moreover, so general in this
period that it does not characterize Plotinus in particular.
Philosophy, after the Hellenistic period, passed on entirely
into the hands o f Orientals. The great names in the Stoic
school were the names o f Greeks from Asia Minor, o f Rho­
dians, Egyptians, and even Babylonians. After Plotinus, it
was in Syria and Egypt that Neoplatonism developed. The
professorial chairs o f the Academy at Athens were occupied
by Syrians. The sacred writings on which Proclus based his
teaching were not only Plato’s Timaeus but certain alleged
Chaldean Oracles, a poem written about the second century
a . d ., an apocryphal work believed to contain the ancient

wisdom o f the Orient.

The accord o f the ideas o f Plotinus with the philosophy o f
the Indians has been noticed long ago. As far back as 1857,
Christian Lassen,7 in supporting the proofs given b y Ritter in
his History of Ancient Philosophy, brings out a great number
o f resemblances. He has the very distinct feeling that Plotini-
anism contains too many innovations to be attributed to an
internal development o f Greek philosophy, and he assumes
a historical influence o f India upon Plotinus. But the chrono­
logical priority o f the Indian systems to which he compares
the philosophy o f Plotinus is not sufficiently well established
to enable one to rely upon his demonstration.
7 Christian Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde (4 vols.; B o n n ; H. B . K oe­
nig, 1847-62), III, 4 1 5 - 3 9 .

12 2
 The Orientalism o f Plotinus

The German scholars who, during the last few years, have
singularly increased our knowledge o f the philosophy o f In­
dia through their translations and commentaries did not fail
to call attention to the affinity between certain Western
thinkers and Indian thought. Along with the names o f
Spinoza and Schelling, it is that o f Plotinus which occurs
most often in the works o f Deussen and Oldenberg. Identity
in the philosophy o f Schelling, the union o f the soul with
God in the intellectual love in Spinoza, are conceptions
closely related to the identity o f the self with the universal
being in Plotinus. They are found in the Upanishads.
The common and rather monotonous theme o f all the
Upanishads is that o f a knowledge which assures the one pos­
sessing it peace and unfailing happiness. This knowledge is
the consciousness o f the identity o f the self with the universal
being.
The state o f mind implied by such an ideal has been de­
scribed very definitely by Oldenberg: “ In India,” he writes,
‘the sense o f personality does not acquire its full force.
Moreover, a permanent and positive existence within fixed
limits is not attributed to things. This is because, for Indian
thinkers, life is not dominated by activity, which is condi­
tioned by the individual and fixed nature o f resisting objects,
and which is forced, in order to attain its end, to examine and
evaluate the most minute particularities o f those objects.
What prevails is the impatience o f an intellect which cannot
grasp rapidly enough a unity through the knowledge o f
which the entire universe is known. . . . The eye is closed to
appearances and to their color and detail. One seeks to under­
stand how the vital stream, which is unique in all things,
springs forth from its obscure depths.” 8
8 Hermann Oldenberg, Die Lehre der Upattischadett und die Anfänge des
Buddhismus (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 19 15 ), p. 39.

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Thus the difficulty we have in understanding this (Indian)

doctrine does not come from its systematic complexity, for
it is most summary and expressible in few formulas. But it is
difficult for minds accustomed to a plastic and definite rep­
resentation o f reality to achieve a state o f mind in which
these formulas have a meaning. For it is precisely this definite
representation o f things which is an obstacle to knowledge,
as knowledge is conceived by Indian thinkers. “ Whatever
man attains,” says an Upanishad, “ he tends to surmount. He
reaches into the heavens and stretches higher. He attains the
world which is beyond and reaches still higher.” 9 Real
knowledge consists then not in classifying forms and in
grasping their relations, but, on the contrary, in going be­
yond every finite form.
But not in going beyond the self. In fact, the universal
being, Brahman, this “ invisible” thing, which we can neither
touch nor grasp, which is the “ indescribable,” is at the same
time the being which is “ grounded in the certitude o f its own
self.” 10 Here we are dealing with, it seems, the characteristic
trait o f the theory o f the Indians. The universal being, Brah­
man, is the subiect o f knowledge, the act o f knowing;11 and
that is why, on the one hand, the universal being is not pre­
sented to knowledge as limited objects are, and, on the other
hand, our self, the Atman, is in its deepest and most essential
reality absolutely identical with the universal being.
On the one hand, Brahman is not an object o f knowledge.
“ Thou canst not,” says an Upanishad, “ see the seer in the
seeing, hear that which hears in the soul, comprehend that
which comprehends in the mind, know what knows in
9 Ibid., p. 4 1.
10 Paul Deussen (trans.), Sechzig Upanischads des Veda (Leipzig, 1897).
11 Oldenberg, op. cit.y p. 10 1.

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knowledge.” 12 So this knowledge has nothing to do with

understanding and erudition. Knowledge o f the Veda is in­
adequate to lead to it. Meditation and ascetic practices are
required. The identity o f the self with the universal being is
not a rational conclusion reached by the intellect, but a sort
o f intuition due to the practice o f meditation.
The philosophy o f the Upanishads, in fact, does not go
beyond the self. This is its characteristic trait. But it holds as
certain that this self is without limits and that it is all things-
It utilizes two fundamental concepts: that o f Brahman, the
universal being, the unfathomable principle o f all forms o f
reality, and that o f Atman, which is the principle in so far as
it exists in the human soul, the pure self, independent o f all
particular functions o f the soul, such, for example, as the
nutritive or the cognitive. The main thesis is that Brahman is
identical with Atman, that is to say, as Deussen put it,13 the
force which creates and preserves the world is identical with
what we discover in ourselves as our true self when we dis­
regard all the activities related to definite objects. The real
difficulty in the doctrine o f the Upanishads is then the very
one I pointed out in Plotinus. It consists in inquiring in what
sense the self, in concentrating upon itself, finds within itself
the very principle o f the universe. “ Whosoever has known,
seen, and comprehended the self knows the entire uni-
verse. 4
Moreover, the self discovers no limit to its being, and it is
diffused in things. “ The self is a replica o f all existence; for,
through it, one knows all existence.” “ The space within my
heart is as great as the space o f the world. Both heaven and
12 Deussen, Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie (6 vols.; Leipzig: F. A .
Brockhaus, 18 9 4 -19 17 ), I, Part II, 73.
13 Ibid., p. 37. 14 Ibid., p. 40.

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earth are included in it, the god o f fire and o f wind, the sun
and the moon.” 15
Thus little by little there arises, out o f a vague and indefi­
nite contemplation which is neither directed nor limited
through action, the feeling o f interpenetration between the
self and things. All sense o f distinction between the subiect
knowing and the obiect known is obliterated. The self is as
much the universe as the universe is the self On the one
hand, “ the self which penetrates everything, which is greater
than heaven, is my own self.” On the other hand, when the
universal being, Brahman, inquires o f the wandering soul,
“ Who art thou?” it replies, “ That which thou art, I am.” 16
In one sense, it is true, this state is one o f detachment from
the self and the person. “ Those who devote themselves
purely to meditation are free from self and are not conscious
o f self—they attain the highest world,” says a text o f the
Mahabharata, an epic poem which is later in origin than the
Upanishads but which must be earlier than the third century
a . d . 17 But the self from which one detaches one’s self is the

self o f limited consciousness. In return, one attains the real

self, that which is the whole and which, consequently, is free
from desire. “ The form o f existence in which desire is satis­
fied, in which one is without desire,” is at the same time the
one “ in which one desires the self.” 18 It follows that the
greatest value is accorded to the states in which personal con­
sciousness diminishes and is extinguished. It is only then that
the self knows itself in its depths. One attains this goal in par­
ticular in the state o f sleep “ in which one manifests no desire,
15 Oldenberg, op. e x t p. 12 5. 16 Ibid., pp. 125-26.
17 Deussen, Vier philosophische Texte des Mahabharatam (Leipzig: F. A.
Brockhaus, 1906), p. 993.
18 Oldenberg, op. cit., p. 14 1.

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in which one does not dream . . . in which one knows

neither object nor self.” 19 The universal being is then no
longer known as an object but as identical with the self. The
goal is attained the instant that every intermediary has dis­
appeared. “ If he admits into himself an intermediary or a
barrier, however slight it may be, between himself as subject
and Atman as object, then his confusion continues; it is the
confusion o f one who considers himself wise.” 20
This knowledge is not knowledge, then, in the usual sense
o f the term, since it is knowledge concerning the very sub­
ject o f knowledge and o f the act o f knowing. “ Where every­
thing has become its own self, how can it still feel, see, hear,
and know? How can it know him through whom it knows
everything? How can it know that which knows? . . . You
cannot see that which sees in seeing, nor hear that which
hears in hearing, nor understand that which understands in
Intelligence, know that which knows in knowledge. There
is nothing outside o f it to see, to understand, and to know
it.” 21 Atman then is not an obiect o f knowledge. This identi­
fication exists above knowledge. “ Whoever does not know
it, knows it; unknown by him who knows, it is known by
him who does not know. It is attained neither through dis­
course nor through thought, nor through the eye. We say:
it is. How would it be known otherwise than through this
word?” 22
I f I have made the genesis o f this state clear, we see how
this emptiest o f abstractions is at the same time the richest
and the fullest knowledge, which gives to the soul the trium­
phant assurance o f being the whole and o f having conquered
death itself. “ Whosoever knows the Atman, whosoever
19 Ibid., p. 140. 20 Deussen, Sechzig Upanischads, p. 232.
« Deussen, Geschtchte, pp. 73^74. 22 Ibid., p. 77.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

has understood that he is the Atman, has no reason to seek

further, and why should he suffer in his body? Whosoever
has found the Atman, whosoever has awakened to him, that
one is the Creator o f all; for the Atman creates all. The
world belongs to him, for he is himself the world.”
It is easy to see the exact characteristics by which these
speculations are opposed to the Hellenic and Judeo-Christian
ideal. First, in opposition to Greek philosophy, they contain
no attempt at a rational explanation o f things. Rather, Brah­
man and Atman are beings into which these things are re­
absorbed. As a text o f theMahabharata says, Brahman is the
“ non-particularized.” What corresponds to rational explana­
tion is at best a theory o f emanation, which Oldenberg points
out as a tendency in the philosophy o f the Upanishads.23
Things will be only the unfolding and expansion o f forces
which are united in the universal being. This dynamism, the
notion o f the development o f one and the same life, is very
far from the rational order o f forms sought by the Greek
philosophers.
In the second place, knowledge o f the self possesses no
ethical character in this philosophy. The concentration o f the
soul upon itself, a text o f the Mahabharata tells us, “ is more
important than all the other duties; it is the supreme duty.” 24
This is a clear pronouncement that the religious life is ex­
ternal and superior to the ordinary moral life and is far from
constituting its substance. Thus, as Oldenberg has re­
marked,25 the unity o f all creatures intuitively felt is by no
means an ethical unity. Let one consider how different this
ideal is from the monism o f the Stoics, in which moral
23 Op. cit., p. 127.
24Deussent Vier philosophische Texte, p. 392.
Op. cit., p. 143.

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beings, who are also substantially the same, are united

through juridical ties as citizens forming a part in one and
the same city.
In the third place, finally, Brahman (identical with the
Atman), though he is in one sense a self, a subject o f knowl­
edge, nevertheless experiences nothing pertaining to the life
of a moral person, because, in isolating him completely from
nature and from everything that is outside o f him, one abol­
ishes all the relationships which constitute the moral person.
“ The world o f creation,” we are told, “ is the very being o f
God. What can he desire, he who has all?” 26 Within the com­
plete solitude o f his being he has no relation with other
beings. The relation o f the Hindu ascetic to him is not the
trusting attitude o f a faithful believer. The ascetic is merely
endeavoring to remove every veil which separates him from
Brahman.

There are indications that even before

Plotinus, a more or less vague feeling concerning the origi­
nality o f Indian thought existed among some in the Greek
world.
As Regnaud has remarked, the following formula o f an
Upanishad, “ He obtains everything he desires who in his
search for it acquires the notion o f the Atman,” is equivalent
to the precept yv&di aeaiiTÔv. “ But the identity is only ap­
parent. . . . The Greeks, in taking the knowledge o f man as
the basis o f their studies, gave a positive direction to their
investigations, whereas the Indians had in view only the no­
tion o f a mystic being.” 27
N ow we find, on the same subject, an anecdote related by
26 Deussen, Sechzig Upattischads, p. 579.
27 Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, X X V III, 2 12.

12Ç
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

Aristoxenos o f Tarentum, a contemporary of Aristotle,

which conveys exactly the same ideas. “ Socrates,” he relates,
“ met an Indian in Athens who asked him what philosophy
he was practicing. When Socrates replied that his inquiries
dealt with human life, the Indian began to laugh and said
that one could not contemplate human things if one knew
nothing about divine things/’28
However spurious the anecdote may be, it indicates the
very clear sense o f the differences I have mentioned. But here
is a more conclusive text taken from the Life of Apollonius by
Philostratus. One day Apollonius met some Hindu sages
whom he thought he would embarrass by asking if they
knew themselves. He considered, as every Greek did, says
Philostratus, that knowledge o f the self is the most difficult to
acquire. The Hindus replied: “ I f we know everything, it is
because first o f all we know ourselves; and we should in no
wise have attained to wisdom, had we not first known our­
selves.” Apollonius replied by asking who they thought they
were. “ Gods,” they answered. “ And why?” he asked. “ Be­
cause we are men o f virtue.” 29
Thus in the words o f these imaginary Hindus we meet
again the doctrine o f the identity o f the self with the uni­
versal being and with God, the knowledge o f self, knowl­
edge o f one’s own divinity, so different from the knowledge
o f self as the Greek moralists understood it. We meet with it
again unquestionably in the philosophy o f Plotinus, in which
it has appeared to us as a thoroughly characteristic thesis, and
we shall see it developed further in certain aspects o f the
28 Aristocles, Neoplatonist o f the second century a .d ., quoted b y Euse­
bius Preparatio evangelica xi, 3. 28.
39 Life o f Apollonius iii. 18.

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hypostasis which remains to be studied—namely, that o f the

One.30
30 The specialist in Indian philosophy, O livier Lacombe, in a “ N ote sur
Plotin et la pensée indienne,” Annuaire de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études,
Section des Sciences Religieuses, 19 5 0 -5 1, has taken up again the question
treated in this chapter. He considers a connection between Plotinus and In­
dia as probable and, in any case, affirms the doctrinal relationship between
Plotinus and the Vedanta, in spite o f the differences o f emphasis. “ The tri­
umphant expression o f the delivered living,” he writes, “ which proclaims:
I am Brahman, has no such conspicuous counterpart in the Enneadsy in
which the sentiment o f the transcendence o f the One appears more emphati­
cally.” See also J . Przyluski, “ Les trois hypostases dans Tlnde et à Alexan­
drie,” Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie Orientale (Brussels), IV (1936), w ho
compares the trinity o f the hypostases with the doctrine o f the three bodies
o f Buddha. P. Marrucchi in Influssi indiani nella philosojia di Plotino? (Rome,
1938) and J . Filliozat in the Revue historique, January, 1949, think that the
doctrinal affinities do not im ply a direct influence.

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 THE ONE

There is a double perspective in Plotinus’

notion o f Intelligence. On the one hand, it is the intelligible
and eternal order, composed o f fixed and definite relations,
which serves as model to the sensible order. On the other
hand, it is thought directed toward itself, in which all dis­
tinction o f subject and object disappears, in which the self is
merged in a universal being.
It seemed to me that the second perspective was foreign to
the tradition o f Greek thought. Intelligence becomes merely
inward satisfaction (experienced in a vague and indefinite
contemplation) o f having escaped from all particular forms
o f being. It seeks no rational explanation. All ethical and in­
tellectual relations which constitute a thought and a person
are lost in this contemplation. These are traits characteristic
o f the religious doctrine o f the Hindus as expressed in the
Upanishads. This is why it has seemed to me that the system
o f Plotinus must be linked to Indian thought. What relates
Plotinus to Indian thought is his decided preference for con­
templation, from which he derives the only true reality, his
scorn for the practical moral life, and finally, the egoistic and
universal character o f the spiritual life as he conceived it. In­
deed, in its highest stage, the spiritual life consists in the rela-

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tionship in which the soul is “ alone” with the universal prin­

ciple; it excludes any union with other beings and persons.
This hypothesis is the only one which enables us to clear
up the difficulties in Plotinus’ doctrine concerning the rela­
tions o f Intelligence to the supreme principle and the very
nature o f this principle itself.
It is the doctrine o f the One which has given rise to the
greatest differences in interpretation. We may wonder what
its exact nature is. In asserting that Intelligence is not the ulti­
mate principle, that the source o f beings escapes every intel­
lectual determination, does not Plotinus become the first au­
thor in the West o f an irrationalistic metaphysics? Moreover,
since he considers this original principle as the object o f an
experience sui generis, o f a sort o f immediate and non-intel-
lectual contact very different from intellectual knowledge, is
it not likewise true that he considers the problem o f the ra­
tional structure o f reality as insoluble? Indeed, to acknowl­
edge an experience which is absolute, an experience which
through its nature is susceptible to no analysis whatever, is to
acknowledge a datum impervious to intelligence.
It is the import o f this irrationalism which I intend to in­
vestigate. I should like to show first in what sense the notion
o f the One is connected with the idealistic rationalism o f
Plato. After that I shall study the doctrine in its irrationalistic
and mystical aspect. Finally, I shall try to show how the prin­
ciples o f a new idealism, which is as different from Greek
rationalism as from mysticism, are found in the doctrine o f
the One.

I reminded the reader in a preceding

chapter that the theology o f the philosophical doctrines o f
the Greeks was based upon the apotheosis o f Intelligence. To

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make o f Intelligence the supreme god o f which all real things

are only acts and manifestations is a manifestation o f the ra­
tionalism inherent in Greek thought.
But this is, in some respects, a quite inadequate statement.
One sees immediately that this rationalism has a much more
complete and rigorous form in Plato than in the Stoics and
even in Aristotle. N ow in the last two the supreme god was
Intelligence, whereas Plato admitted a principle transcendent
to Intelligence, which he called the Good or the One.
This is so because, between the “ rationalism” o f the Stoics
and that o f Plato, there is all the difference that exists between
a body o f thought which is biological and moral and a body
o f thought whose scope is primarily mathematical. For the
Stoics, Intelligence is a living force which possesses within
itself the source and the law o f its determinations. For Plato,
on the contrary, Intelligence is the faculty which determines
the measurements o f beings, which substitutes fixed and
mathematically expressible relations for the momentary and
vanishing relationships presented to us by sensible reality.
N ow as Plato says in the Statesman (283D), the art o f
measurement is twofold. We may either compare a larger
thing directly with a smaller thing, in order to see how many
times the second is contained in the first; or we may compare
a given magnitude with a unit o f measure taken as an abso­
lute, in order to see how much it deviates through excess or
through deficiency from the unit o f measure. This second art
o f measurement, which constitutes dialectic, implies a unit o f
measure which is absolute and valid in itself. This unit is
“ the moderate, the fitting, the necessary” (Statesman 284E),
which allows us not to be satisfied with relative measure­
ments but to attain the absolute measure o f things.
Thus the unit o f measure is necessarily transcendent to the

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things which we measure and which it serves to evaluate and

to determine. It is probably in this sense that we ought to
understand the passage o f the Republic (509B) quoted so
often by Plotinus: “ The Good is beyond essence and exceeds
it in dignity and in power.” This at any rate is, as we shall see
immediately, how Plotinus understood it. An essence can
only be what it is thanks to the measure which determines its
limits exactly and which is here called the Good. The meas­
ure itself, or the Good which is the producer o f essence and
which renders the essence manifest to thought, as the sun
sheds light upon plants at the same time that it gives them
vegetative power, cannot be identified with any o f these
essences.
To affirm in this sense the transcendence o f the One in re­
lation to Intelligence is then not at all being unfaithful to
rationalism. It is saying, what in fact Plotinus often repeats,
that Intelligence will not be able to grasp any definite being
and will not be a veritable Intelligence before having been
illumined by the One and having found in the One the
measure which enables it to grasp fixed and stable relations.
B y the time o f Plotinus, this Platonic theory o f the tran­
scendence o f the One had long since reappeared in the fore­
ground o f the philosophic thought o f the Greeks. Since the
first century B.C., the revival o f Pythagoreanism and the in­
clination for numerical symbolism which accompanied it
had called attention again to Platonic thought. The doctrine
o f God in Philo o f Alexandria is impregnated with it. Tran­
scendence according to the Jewish conception, which is the
transcendence o f a personal god, mingles almost inextricably
in his thought with the Platonic transcendence, that o f the
One which measures everything.
In this matter, Plotinus was no innovator. His role was

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chiefly that o f an interpreter. But he fixed the tradition in

such clear and penetrating formulas that his doctrine on this
point became a permanent and well-established element in
all later Greek Neoplatonism, whereas so many o f his other
doctrines were abandoned. This is because at this point he
preserved the very tradition o f Hellenism. It is important
then to see in some detail how Plotinus formulated this doc­
trine.
It is presented sometimes, particularly in one o f his earliest
writings, in a way which connects it with Stoicism rather
than with Platonism. In the ninth treatise o f the sixth Ennead,
Plotinus sets out from the Stoic principle which maintains
that “ it is through the One that all beings exist.” Whether it
be a question o f discontinuous magnitudes, like an army or a
flock, or one o f continuous magnitudes, such as a body, they
would be deprived o f being “ i f they were to lose their
unity.” Now, what is the principle o f this unity? It is not the
Soul, since the Soul itself is multiple, and is composed o f dif­
ferent faculties which must “ be united through the One as i f
by a bond.” The Stoics, then, are wrong in regarding the
Soul as an underived principle o f unity. Nor is it the essence
o f a being that constitutes the unity o f that being. Here
Plotinus attacks Aristotle without naming him. The essence
o f an object is, in reality, always a complex notion such as:
“ man is an animal, is rational, and several other things be­
sides.” W e need then a unity transcendent to the essence for
the purpose o f connecting its parts. Intelligence, which is the
sum total o f the essences, possesses no unity except that o f a
systematic order which reflects the real and true One. The
One appears here then as the condition o f an ordered system.
In the first treatise o f the fifth Ennead (sec. 5), Plotinus asks
himself whence comes the multiplicity o f intelligible objects.

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“ Multiplicity cannot be first” ; for every number is engen­

dered through the action o f the One upon the indefinite
dyad. The indefinite dyad is the undetermined relation o f
“ greater” and “ lesser” which, in itself, is not a number but
the substratum o f all numbers. I f we grant that this relation is
fixed, a number will arise. This relation will be, for example,
the double or the relation o f two to one, and thus will arise
the number two. This determination arises from the action o f
the One upon the indefinite dyad. Not that the One moved
and that it willed this action. For it is only because the One or
the measure remains eternally immovable, because it con­
tinues, as Plotinus says elsewhere, “ in its own nature,” that it
produces its action.
How then was it produced? In order to understand the
Neo-Pythagoreanism o f Plotinus properly, we must imagine
an Intelligence which, with its attention directed toward the
unit o f measure, becomes, thanks to its vision o f this unit,
capable o f determining within itself fixed relations. If we
isolate this attitude, i f we hypostatize it, we shall understand
what Plotinus means by the genesis o f Intelligence. The ques­
tion is not one o f physical action, o f the production o f one
thing by another, but o f a spiritual action. “ Intelligence looks
toward the One, in order to be Intelligence.” This gaze upon
the One is at the same time, and through that very fact, a
turning inward upon the self, that is to say, the consciousness
o f the systematic and fixed connection o f its parts which
Plotinus calls avyaiadrjaLs. It is this vision o f the One which
gives Intelligence the power to engender the essences, that
is, the “ beings fixed within a determined boundary and in a
permanent state. This permanent state [oracm] is for the
intelligibles the definition and the form whence they derive
their reality [u7rooTa(ns].” Every real thing which merits the

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name o f being is then due to this vision o f Intelligence caused

by the One.
In the second treatise o f the same Ennead, Plotinus asks
himself how “ all beings proceed from the One which is
simple and which manifests, within its identity, no diversity
and no repetition/* Plotinus distinguishes three moments
within this productive act. “ The One, being perfect, over­
flows; and this superabundance produces a thing different
from it. The thing engendered turns back to the One. It be­
comes fruitful; and, in turning its attention upon itself,1 it
becomes Intelligence. Its arrest in turning to the One makes
it a being, and its attention turned toward itself makes it In­
telligence. And since it stopped in order to look at itself, it
becomes both Intelligence and being/’ It is easy to see what
must be understood by this sort o f theogony. The indeter­
minate thing which arises from the One is the other, also
called the indefinite dyad or ideal matter. It constitutes the
first moment. In turning back upon the One, that is to say, in
letting itself be determined by the One (and this is the second
moment), it recognizes within itself fixed limits and, in that
way, it knows itself.
Section io o f the third treatise describes this genesis for us
in almost the same way. Intelligence, it is said, must have
many and always different objects in order to think. I f the
mind “ does not advance toward a different state, it will stand
still; and once completely arrested it will cease to think.” In
Platonic terms borrowed from the Sophist, there must be in
each object o f thought something o f the same and o f the
other. “ If thought wills to apply itself to an object one and
11 render a v t o with the manuscript, in spite o f the reading o f V olk-
mann’s edition (airó). C f. René Arnou, Le désir de Dieu dans la philosophie
de Plotin (Paris: F. Alean, 19 2 1), p. 196.

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 The One

indivisible, no verbal account (X070S) is possible any longer.

. . . A being which thinks must comprehend differences, and
the objects which it conceives must present variety. Other­
wise, there is no thought but only that sort o f contact or
touch either ineffable or non-rational which exists before the
rise o f Intelligence. To touch is not to think.”
But what is the reason for this dynamism? In section 1 1,
Plotinus deals with the description of the second of the mo­
ments which I have pointed out. In the return movement o f
Intelligence to the One, he distinguishes two further mo­
ments. The first consists in that “ there is a tendency toward
the One which Intelligence desires to lay hold upon in its
simplicity.” Then, it is not yet intelligence, “ but a vision
which does not yet have an object.” It has at the most only a
“ vague representation,” possesses only a “ vague outline.” It
is “ desire to see and vision without distinctness.” It has, in
short, the vague feeling o f measure. The result o f its contact
with the One consists in multiplying this common measure
by applying and diversifying it. Then “ its object, from being
one, has become multiple. It is in this way that it knows the
object in viewing it and that it has become actual vision.”
We cannot describe in a clearer and, let us add, less mysti­
cal manner the process o f intellectual knowledge which has
its source and its force in the vague feeling o f a measure
which has to be discovered, and is determined and fixed by
degrees through an increasingly detailed knowledge o f this
measure. It may appear strange that Plotinus hypostatized
this attitude. But here he merely followed the tradition o f
Greek idealism.
Accordingly, the One is considered not so much the static
principle o f the union o f beings as the dynamic principle o f
Intelligence. The One is not so much the actual object o f In-

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telligence as the reason which causes Intelligence to have ob-

jects. “ The Good is the source. It is from the Good that Intel­
ligence derives the beings which Intelligence produces.
When Intelligence looks upon the Good, Intelligence is no
longer permitted to think nothing, but to think what is in the
Good. Otherwise it would not produce anything. From the
Good, Intelligence derives the power to engender and to
sate itself with the beings that it engenders. The Good gives
to Intelligence characteristics it does not itself possess. From
the One comes a multiplicity to Intelligence. Incapable o f
containing the power which it receives from the One, Intel­
ligence reduces it to fragments and multiplies it, in order to
be able to entertain it thus part by part” (vi. 7. 15).
The One is then the ever present source, infinitely produc­
tive o f the acts o f Intelligence. It is not in the One, but in
Intelligence, that the productive activity exists o f which the
One is the source. Properly speaking, a vision o f the One
does not exist in Intelligence; for this vision, in which Intel­
ligence would be absorbed without being differentiated,
would no longer be intellectual thought. “ We must not say
then that Intelligence beholds the One. Intelligence lives
oriented toward the One. It is suspended from the One and
it turns toward the One” (ibid. 16). Intelligence derives the
power from the One to establish within the infinite the fixed
relations which at once constitute beings and make them
visible to Intelligence. “ When life directs its glance toward
the One, it is unbounded. Once it has seen the One, it ac­
quires boundaries. . . . This glance toward the One immedi­
ately produces boundary, determination, and form in it. . . .
This life which has received a boundary is Intelligence”
(ibid. 17). The word “ life” designates here the dynamic cur­
rent which proceeds from the Good, in advance o f all distinct

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determination. When this current is determined and is lim­

ited, life becomes Intelligence. “ Life is an act derived from
the Good, and Intelligence is this very act when the act re­
ceives a boundary” (ibid. 21). It is always the same process,
the passage from the indefinite to the definite, from the
unbounded to the bound. But the form under which it is
here presented is o f peculiar historical significance because
the triad o f the One, Life, and Intelligence is the model fol­
lowed by Neoplatonic Scholasticism after Plotinus, in par­
ticular by Damascius. In Plotinus, life is not yet a hypostasis.
The word only calls attention to the vague, boundless sub­
stratum o f Intelligence properly so called.

True to the tradition o f Plato, adopted by

the Neo-Pythagoreans, the One is in Plotinus the ultimate
condition o f the spiritual life, the principle thanks to which
Intelligence provides itself with objects and contemplates
them.
But, in order to understand a doctrine thoroughly, we
must not be content merely to analyze its logical structure
and to separate its parts. We must understand the meaning
its author gives it and the interests to which it is linked. I f we
consider the doctrine only from the outside, it seems to teach
a method to be followed, to suggest a plan o f intellectual life.
It is, in short, the Platonic dialectic which, as employed by
Plato, proved to be so fruitful in applications to physical,
moral, and social questions. N ow it is certain that in Plotinus
as in all o f Neoplatonism this method, as such, remains
sterile. Intelligence receives no incentive from it for the for­
mulation o f problems. What once was perhaps a method, in
Plato especially, was transformed into a metaphysical reality.
This reality is no longer the living, inquiring, and inquisitive

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mind. It is a perfect Intelligence, timelessly complete, which

has nothing more to seek. N o doubt, ideally, intellectual
knowledge is the end o f a quest. Intelligence itself is a desire
(ibid. 37). But this “ wandering course” that Intelligence pur­
sues among the essences is not a real movement. For, “ as In­
telligence is everywhere at home in the plane o f truth, this
excursion is in reality only a halt within itself.” Its march is
eternally complete. “ It must move or rather have achieved
its movement in every direction” (ibid. 13-14 ).
This doctrine o f Plotinus offers, as all the doctrines o f his
time, a very instructive illustration o f how the transposition
o f a method into a metaphysical reality can withdraw all life
and efficacy from this method. It is in this way, for example,
that arithmetic is turned into a rigid symbolism, in which
certain chosen numerical calculations are deemed to be abso­
lute realities and which divert the mind from the search for
other calculations. Also, as P. Duhem has pointed out, the
geometrical and phoronomic calculations destined to “ do
justice to astronomical phenomena” and to forecast them are
transformed into physical realities, the celestial spheres,
bearers o f the stars, which arrested and impeded astronomy
for a long time. The philosophy o f Plotinus, with its rigid
and fixed Intelligence which retains only the form and out­
line o f the Platonic dialectic, serves but to express the defects
o f mind which were common to his time and which had
become increasingly noteworthy through the history o f
Greek philosophy.

But we must certainly understand the

reasons for this defect and also its opposite. We cannot at­
tribute it without further evidence to the reifying spirit. We
must seek its cause in a shifting o f interests. Platonism and

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Neo-Pythagoreanism taught that the intellectual life is not

grounded in itself but that its source is to be sought in some­
thing higher. Originally, this was a means o f stimulating the
intellectual life and o f supplying it with continually new ob-
jectives. It was, for Plotinus, the affirmation that the intel­
lectual life is not sufficient in itself and that we must go be­
yond it. The intellectual life is but a means and a step to at­
tain the higher term which has rendered it fruitful.
In an interesting passage, Plotinus speaks o f the “ persistent
objection” o f the Epicurean who chooses to see the good
only in pleasure and who inquires “ what one gains, as regards
the good, in possessing Intelligence” and whether it is not
merely the pleasure derived from intellectual contemplation
which makes one say that it is a good. “ Perhaps,” remarks
Plotinus, “ he senses through his objection that the Good is
higher than Intelligence” (ibid. 29).
This is an apparent acknowledgment that the One or the
Good possesses a value which is absolute and independent o f
the intellectual system o f which it is the dominant factor.
The One is no longer merely, as within this system, the
unconditioned, the measure whose function it is to give to
beings their boundaries. In Plato, the One possesses meaning
only within this system. It is the supreme Idea, but it is still an
Idea. In Plotinus, its significance and value belong to it and
are independent o f its effects. It is not Intelligence, as such,
which leads us to it. “ Each intelligible has a nature o f its own,
but it becomes an object o f desire only through the color
cast upon it by the Good. . . . Before that, the Soul is not
drawn at all toward Intelligence, however beautiful it may
be, for Intelligence possesses only a dull beauty before re­
ceiving the light o f the Good. The Soul, left to itself, sinks
and becomes indolent. It remains inert, and, although Intel­

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ligence is present to it, it is too sluggish to think. But as soon

as the glow from above has pervaded it, the Soul gathers
strength, awakens, really spreads its wings, and, although
passionately fond o f what it sees close at hand, it rises buoy­
ant toward a higher object, thanks to its recollection o f it.
And as long as there are objects higher than what is present to
it, it rises, uplifted spontaneously by that which has endowed
it with love. It rises higher than Intelligence, and if it is unable
to pursue its course beyond the Good, it is because there is
nothing beyond” (ibid. 22).
This is a clearly marked recognition o f the independence
o f life in the presence o f the Good. Without doubt, the Soul
was able to reach the intelligible realm only “ because it be­
came Intelligence and intellectualized as it were; but as soon
as it beholds the supreme object, it abandons everything
else” (ibid. 35).
The contrast with the Platonic views which I gave an ex­
position o f at the beginning o f the chapter is very striking.
Whereas above (vi. 3. 11) , the progress o f Intelligence pro­
ceeded from a dim vision to one which is clear, now (vi. 7.
3 5) its real progress consists in passing from the distinct vision
o f objects to the completely single vision o f the One. Its
power to contemplate distinct objects is “ the act o f con­
templation which belongs to a wise Intelligence. The second
o f these powers (that o f the vision o f the One) is Intelligence
in love. Transported and intoxicated with nectar, it becomes
loving Intelligence, simplifying itself in order to attain this
state o f blessed fulness.”
In the first passage, the act o f Intelligence was present as a
movement proceeding from a vague, indefinite vision to a
definite and precise vision. In the second passage, we are still
concerned with these two visions, but their value is reversed.

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The vision o f the Good possessed by “ Intelligence in love,”

an Intelligence which ceases to think, is superior to the defi­
nite and distinct vision o f the essences, just as the definite vi­
sion is superior to the tentative and confused vision o f the
One. These two texts imply very different points o f view. In
the first, the One is the methodological presupposition, so to
speak, o f the work o f Intelligence, and it is in this sense that
Plotinus denies that there is a vision o f the One by Intelli­
gence. In the second, there is communication and blending
between Intelligence and the Good, and in it Intelligence
loses all its distinct traits. The Good itself appears there freed
from all compromise with the intellectual operation which
had first defined it.
Plotinus himself recognized moreover that knowledge or
rational knowledge o f the Good is different from the vision
o f the Good. “ Plato says that the knowledge o f the Good is
the greatest learning, meaning by learning not the vision o f
the Good but the reasoned knowledge which we have o f it
prior to this vision. We learn about the Good from analogies,
negations, and the knowledge o f the beings derived from it
and their ascending gradations. But it is our acts o f purifica­
tion, our virtues, and the order o f our inner being which lead
us up to the Good. . . . Thus one becomes a contemplator o f
one’s self and o f other things, and at the same time an object
o f one’s own contemplation; and having become essence, In­
telligence, and the universal living being, one no longer
views the Good from without (ibid. 36).
Thus the Good, in the strict Platonic sense as the standard
o f measurement, is considered the foundation o f scientific
knowledge. But the Good which grants peace and satisfac­
tion to the soul is brought into relation with moral and re­
ligious practices and, very definitely, with the practice o f

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inner meditation. We are here within two completely dif­

ferent schemes o f thought.
It is because the second conception o f the Good—namely,
the mystical and the religious, which is fundamentally inde­
pendent o f every attempt at a rational explanation o f things
—prevailed over the first and took possession o f Plotinus
that the active intellectual life, that which constructs and in­
terprets, lost its meaning and value for him. The Platonic
dialectic ceased to be a method, an intellectual leaven.
At once mystical and intellectualistic, the theory o f the
Good presents in Plotinus the same duality as the theory o f
Intelligence.

“ Intellectualistic” and “ mystical” —these

two words are very far from being adequate to characterize
the doctrine o f the first principle in Plotinus. For it shares
these two characteristics with all the doctrines o f the period.
However paradoxical this combination may seem, it is none­
theless an established fact, and it is the common postulate o f
the theological thought in the Hellenized Orient as well as
perhaps in Western theology. No difficulty is found in con­
sidering God both as the first term o f a system o f rational ex­
planation o f things and as the object o f a direct and ineffable
intuition in which the very things to be explained, namely,
the finite things, disappear.
In general, when the religious thought o f the Orient
sought expression in the universal language o f the Greeks, it
was no longer content simply to affirm the union o f the be­
liever with God, but it added a complete explanation o f
things, an array o f dogmas. See, for example, what became
o f the preaching o f Jesus in the hands o f the theologian o f the
Fourth Gospel and how Christ was turned into the Word

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 The One

which played a part in the economy o f creation and salva­

tion. The whole history o f Christian dogmatics substantiates
our thesis, as well as the history o f the other Hellenized
Oriental religions. This was a well-established state o f mind
in the Greek world. Stoicism is the chief example, since, espe­
cially in its last forms, it rested upon the intimate union o f the
human soul with a reason which was at the same time the
principle o f reality. Another exceedingly clear example is
that o f Philo o f Alexandria. In him, as in Plotinus, spiritual
worship, prophecy, and ecstasy blend thoroughly with a ra­
tional theory o f the development o f the forms o f reality be­
tween God and the world o f sense.
We can no more deny the presence o f either one o f these
two elements, namely, rationalism and mysticism, in the
system o f Plotinus than we can affirm the union o f these two
elements to be the characteristic o f his philosophy. On the
contrary, that was the common ground o f the thought o f his
time. In reading a remote author, it is always difficult to dis­
tinguish what was commonplace in the thought o f his con­
temporaries from what was original with him. Time brings
about a change in values. But we may state that, in the eyes
o f Plotinus* contemporaries, it was a common and obvious
assertion to say that the One to which we are united through
religious intuition is likewise the explanatory principle and
cause o f the essences (strange as this assertion may be to a
reader of, say, William James).
Consequently, it is less important to explain this union in
general than the exact character o f his mysticism and the way
in which it is related to his intellectualism.
The question which inevitably presents itself to every in­
terpreter o f Plotinus is the following: What place does the
mystical experience or ecstasy have in his system? On the one

H7
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

hand, the metaphysics o f Plotinus presents itself as a sound

rational construction in which the diverse forms o f reality
are linked to each other according to necessary laws. On the
other hand, at times he describes a rare, discontinuous, and
incommunicable experience, the mystical experience o f
communion with the One. May it not be thought, at first,
that there is only a rather loose connection between the ra­
tional construction and the wholly subjective and individual
experience o f ecstasy? This is what many interpreters have
concluded. Is not a mere momentary and passing impression
too unstable a foundation upon which to construct a system?
Such is not the thesis which I shall sustain. We must remem­
ber that for Plotinus there is never any intellectual knowledge
without spiritual life. The soul, for example, is aware o f In­
telligence only in uniting with it. True realities are not inert
objects o f knowledge but subjective spiritual attitudes.

But before demonstrating my thesis, I

should like to state precisely what the mystical experience is
in Plotinus.
Are we obliged to leave the field o f Greek philosophy in
order to explain this experience? Is it not in Plato, the master,
that Plotinus found his model? Plotinus distinguished, as I
have said, a double approach to the Good; on the one hand,
the knowledge o f the ascending scale o f beings from which
we obtain a systematic knowledge o f the Good; and, on the
other hand, the act o f purification (ibid. 36). But had not
Plato, before him, spoken o f a double path for the purpose o f
reascending to the source; on the one hand, the rational
dialectic which proceeds by induction, and, on the other
hand, the dialectic o f love in the Phaedrus, by which the soul
seized by the madness o f desire attains a sudden and ineffable

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intuition o f the Beautiful? Is not the act o f purification, as it

is described in the Phaedo, likewise a means o f attaining the
state o f contemplation? The two aspects o f the notion o f the
Good in Plotinus, namely, the intellectual and the mystical,
would correspond then to these two paths o f approach to the
Good.
In fact, the Platonic Eros plays an important role in the
Enneads. As Amou has pointed out, it designates the univer­
sal tendency o f all things toward the Good, “ the desire for
God.” Love is the universal force which prompts beings to
seek their good. “ The Good o f matter is form, and if matter
were conscious, it would welcome form. . . . The desire that
each being possesses and the efforts it puts forth testify that
there is a Good for every being. . . . The proof that one has
attained the Good consists in the fact that one continues to
improve, that one experiences no regret, that one is filled
with the Good and remains close to it seeking nothing else”
(ibid. 25, 26).
From matter to the Good, realities are graduated accord­
ing to their degrees o f perfection. “ There is an ascending
hierarchy such that each reality is the good for what is below
it, provided that this ascending movement does not abandon
the regularity o f relation between one term and the follow­
ing and continues always toward a superior term. . . . The
good o f the body is the Soul, without which it could neither
exist nor preserve itself. The good o f the Soul is virtue. Still
higher stands Intelligence and, above it, the principle we call
the First” (ibid. 25). Each form attains its perfection and pre­
serves itself just as it is, thanks solely to the bond o f love
which unites it to a being transcendent to it. A being never
finds in itself the conditions o f its fullest reality. “ To desig­
nate the good o f a being does not consist in naming what is

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characteristic o f it!—N o; the good o f a being must be judged

by something better than it rather than by something char­
acteristic o f it, by something higher in relation to which it
itself exists only potentially” (ibid. 27). Eros, in a being, indi­
cates then both the deficient side o f its nature and the possi­
bility o f making up this deficiency through union with a
transcendent being. It is the universal bond which establishes
the continuity between beings.
Thus we find repeatedly in Plotinus the arguments o f the
Phaedrus and the Symposium concerning “ the madness o f
love.” This is certainly one o f the Platonic themes which he
reproduced with the greatest delight, as Philo o f Alexandria
had done before him and as the mystics o f every age were to
do after him. I shall not linger over these well-known de­
scriptions. “ Desire leads us to discover the universal being.
This desire is the Eros which keeps vigil at the door o f its
beloved. Always outside and always enamored with the
beautiful it contents itself with participating in it as much as
it can” (vi. 5. 10).
I would like instead to investigate first the sense in which
the Good is taken as the goal o f the dialectic o f Eros. Plotinus
made a profound observation on the subject o f love: “ It is
not sufficient that an object be right and fitting for the Soul.
I f it is not a good, the Soul flees from it. The Soul even allows
itself to be attracted by objects which are very remote from
its own objects and are very inferior to them. If it conceives a
passionate love for these objects, it is not because they are
what they are but because another element which comes
from the Good is joined to them” (vi. 7. 21). No clearly de­
fined object, existing on the level o f Intelligence, is lovable in
itself. It becomes an object o f love only through an addition­
al element, a warmth, a brightness, a life, which does not

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form part o f its essence but is added to it. “ When the activity
o f Intelligence is pure and distinct,” he says a little further on,
“ when life possesses all its luster, it is lovable and desirable.
. . . This state has its cause in something which gives it color,
light, and brightness” (ibid. 30).
It is the imagination which supplies beings with their at­
traction. “ As long as lovers are content with the visible form
they are not yet in love. But from that form they fashion
within their indivisible souls an invisible image, and then it is
that love is born. If they endeavor to see their beloved, it is
for the purpose o f making this image fruitful and to prevent
it from fading” (ibid. 33).
It is this illusionist theory o f love which we must bear in
mind if we wish to understand the mysticism o f Plotinus and
the notion o f the Good in its mystical aspect. Mystical love
is the true and perfect love, that is to say, the love which no
longer possesses the illusion that it can limit itself to a definite
and fixed object. The Good is the indefinite, boundless,
formless reality which is the counterpart o f this love. “ The
love which we have for the Good is boundless. Yes, love is
here limitless, since the beloved itself is limitless. Its beauty
too is unique, a beauty above beauty” (ibid. 32).
The soul “ which is able to seek out its beloved” (ibid. 31)
remains consumed with desires as long as it is attached to a
definite form. It sees the beauties here below “ slipping
through its fingers” and thus learns that “ they receive from
elsewhere that brilliance which flows into them.” Having
arrived at the intelligibles, the ideas, the soul realizes that the
source o f the beauty which it loves in these ideas “ cannot be
any one among them; for it would then be an idea and a por­
tion o f the intelligible. It is not a particular form, nor a par­
ticular power, any more than it is the sum o f the forms which

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are engendered and reside in the intelligible world. . . . It is

infinite, and if it is infinite, it has no magnitude. . . . It has
neither limit nor shape” (ibid. 32).
The method followed to attain the Good, the “ prepara­
tion” o f the soul which is to make the lover as much as pos­
sible like his beloved, is thus a method o f abstraction.
“ When you utter its name or when you think o f it, put all
else aside, abstracting everything. Be content with the simple
word: it. Do not seek to add anything; but ask yourself if
anything remains which you have not yet eliminated from it
in your conception o f it” (vi. 8. 21). It is necessary above all
“ to confound and to efface the distinct contours o f Intelli­
gence” (vi. 7. 35).
Such a preparation ends at times in the momentary state o f
*joyous stupor” and o f “ blessed fulness” that we call ecstasy.
We must not take it to be a philosophical speculation. It was
felt as a definite experience, ineffable, and impossible to re­
produce at will. Plotinus was subject to these mystical states;
but they were very rare, for Porphyry tells us that Plotinus
achieved them only four times during the entire time that
they were together.2
As Inge has pointed out, we are very far, in the Plotinian
school, from those later circles in which the mystical trance
became an epidemic disease and a frequent state. Plotinus
speaks o f it in the Enneads only with great discretion, when
he calls in the testimony o f “ those who have seen” (iv. 8. 7;
vi. 9. 4, 9)-
The mystical trance is closely related to the Platonic dia­
lectic o f love. It is the momentary and rare state in which the
feeling o f love is experienced in all its purity. The character­
istics o f this state have been described with a great deal o f
2 Life o f Plotinus 23.

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precision by Plotinus, notably in the seventh treatise o f the

sixth Ennead (34). It is preceded by a preparation and by an
“ inner ordering” o f the soul. This preparation consists in
“ turning away from the things which are present” and in
stripping the soul o f all its forms; it knows nothing, good or
evil.3 Then there may occur, by chance, all o f a sudden and
unexpectedly, entirely unforeseeable and independent o f the
will, what the psychologists o f our day have called the “ feel­
ing o f a presence.” 4 Plotinus speaks elsewhere (sec. 31) o f a
“ shock” which seems to precede and to announce this pres­
ence. This word indicates that consciousness is overrun by a
state which is in marked contrast to the earlier state o f empti­
ness. The sudden feeling o f this contrast appears to me to
constitute the basic structure o f the mystical state in Plotinus.
To understand its nature, we must remember that the soul in
a state o f mystical contemplation is possessed by love and de­
sire. The inner preparation, which has emptied the soul, has
stripped it o f every representation o f the objects o f its desire,
but has not stripped it o f its love. Love without an object
then fills consciousness. It seems indeed that it is the contrast
felt between the absence o f all intellectual representation and
the fulness o f love which is the real cause o f the “ feeling o f
presence.” 5
3 C f. the effort toward the im m obility o f thought. “ It does not wish to
think because thought is a movement, and it does not wish to m ove”
(sec. 35).
4 C f. the w ord irapovata, vi. 9. 4.
5 In a recent book, Plotinus* Search fo r the Good (N ew Y o rk : K in g’s
C ro w n Press, 1950), Joseph Katz contests the “ mysticism” o f Plotinus. He
is certainly right in saying the description o f the structure o f the One, with
its negative determinations, comes from the Parmenides o f Plato and that
the Parmenides has nothing o f the mystical in it. B ut the inconsistency which
he justly notes in the theory o f man (one does not know whether Plotinus
is on the side o f Spinoza, w ho sees in human life only a mode, or on the

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The beloved, the Good, is considered as identical with love

itself. Not only does the mystic attain the ideal which the
earthly lover seeks “ who desires to blend with the beloved
object” (vi. 7. 34), but the Good itself is love. “ It is at once
lovable, love, and love o f itself. . . . It loves itself; it loves its
pure light; it is itself what it loves” (vi. 8. 15, 18). Through
Plotinus’ own admission, there is nothing else in this “ pres­
ence” except the feeling o f love itself in the state o f complete
purity.
Such is the mystical experience, which, as described by
Plotinus, is o f an emotional and supraintellectual nature. The
problem now is to explain how a rare and exceptional state
such as that o f ecstasy could be, for Plotinus, the basis o f a
philosophical system. How can mysticism be intellectualistic
at the same time? How could the wholly subjective state o f
desire and love serve to determine the nature o f reality as it is
in itself?
Plotinus sees the problem very clearly. He asks what this
identical element is which, in every being irrespective o f its
essence, is the Good. “ Shall we intrust the solution o f the
question to desire and to the soul? And, trusting in the im­
pression o f the soul, shall we define the Good in terms o f the
desirable? Shall we not try to understand why the soul de­
sires? Whereas we marshal demonstrations concerning the
quiddity of every being, shall we hand over the determina­
tion o f the Good to desire? A number o f absurdities would
result from this. First, the Good would be only an attribute.

side o f Fichte, w ho does not see what interest there would be in attributing
eternity to God i f man could not enjoy it too) is a p ro o f that there is, beside
the philosophic construction o f the One, a direct experience o f the One
that goes beyond the construction o f the understanding. See m y article
“ Mysticisme et doctrine chez Plotin,” Sophia, April, 1948, pp. 122-8 5.

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 The One

Besides, there are many beings which desire and which desire
different things. How can we decide through desire alone
whether one is better than another? . . . W e cannot know
what is better, since we do not know what the good is”
(vi. 7. 19).
On the other hand, we cannot define the Good purely in­
tellectually in saying that it is the essence o f a being, since the
Good always consists in transcending itself, in becoming
something else. Thus there is a real conflict. Our subjective
aspirations are too uncertain to enable us to affirm the reality
o f their object. Our concepts are too fixed. “ We might, from
the feet that it is desired, deduce a proof that it is the Good.
But this object o f desire still must possess a nature which jus­
tifies its name o f the Good” (ibid. 24). “ Yes, the Good must
be desirable, but it is not the Good because it is desirable; it is
desirable because it is the Good” (ibid. 25).
Thus we see here how the issue is reversed. The point is to
justify, and to justify intellectually, so to speak, the dialectic
o f love. Ecstasy, which is the culmination o f this dialectic, is
an experience which cannot be isolated from a system with­
out running the risk o f losing its significance. It is not that
this experience does not possess value in itself, an immediate
value. “ A being capable o f feeling recognizes the Good in
approaching it and affirms its possession o f it. But (an op­
ponent may ask), what if he is mistaken?—it must then be
some resemblance o f the Good which deceives him. I f this
resemblance exists, the Good will exist as model o f the de­
ceiving image; and when the Good itself appears, this deceit­
ful image withdraws” (ibid. 26). Or in other words, the value
o f an experience in such matters can be determined only
from within and through the experience itself. “ The sole
proof that we have attained the Good consists in the fact that

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we remain close to it and that we seek nothing further.” This

full and complete satisfaction presupposes a real and tangible
object. To say that we can experience this satisfaction with­
out possessing the object which calls it forth would be tanta­
mount to saying “ that we can experience the pleasure o f the
presence o f our child when he is absent . . . or that we can
experience the pleasure o f the dinner without eating” (ibid.).
But if the feeling o f satisfaction which accompanies ecstasy
is a proof o f its value, it is still not a proof o f its metaphysical
import. How can this individual experience, which is based,
in short, upon a kind o f dialectic of feeling and which re­
moves us from all reality, be at the same time that which
deepens and completes our vision o f reality?
Such a paradox can be solved in Plotinus only through a
theoretical interpretation o f the experience o f ecstasy. This
interpretation must be distinguished with care from the ex­
perience itself, and, as I shall try to point out, it becomes alto­
gether independent o f the experience.
This is the central difficulty in the Plotinian metaphysics.
In piling up contrasts between the reality accessible to Intelli­
gence and the boundless reality in which ecstatic love loses
itself, it seems that Plotinus has severed every bond which
connected the first with the second, that, consequently, he
conceived the religious life in its highest stage as radically dis­
tinct from the intellectual life, as being in nature different
from it and, so to speak, in another sphere. It would be
ridiculous, he often repeats, to try to make our intelligence
serve to determine the nature o f the One. “ To say that the
One is beyond being is not to say that it is this or that; . . .
this expression does not cover it at all; and it would be
ridiculous to try to embrace such an immensity.” W e must
be quite clear about the name which is given it, namely, the

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One, which at first sight appears to have a positive nature.

This is not at all the case. “ The name ‘One’ contains perhaps
nothing but the negation o f the manifold. The Pythagoreans
named it symbolically among themselves ‘Apollo/ which is
the negation o f plurality. I f the word ‘One’ and the thing
which it designates were taken in a positive sense, the prin­
ciple would become less clear to us than if it had no name at
all” (v. 5. 6).6 Numerous texts warn against any attempt to
communicate with the One except through a vision and an
immediate communion. In order to describe this presence,
Plotinus has recourse to the sensation which, according to the
concepts o f antiquity, is both the most immediate and the
most obscure, namely, the sensation o f touch (vi. 9. 7).
“ How can we describe that which is absolutely simple? An
intellectual contact suffices. But at the moment o f contact one
has neither the power nor the time to express anything” (v.
3. 17). Several times, too, the presence is described in the
form o f a light. We must remember that, contrary to the
views o f Aristotle concerning luminous sensation, Plotinus
tried to show, in a treatise devoted especially to this point,
that luminous sensation presupposed no intermediary be­
tween the object perceived and the perceiving organ and that
it was due to an immediate sympathy between the inner light
in the eye and the outer light. Nothing prevents us then from
conceiving luminous sensation as a contact and even as a
union. “ It is the contact with this light, the vision the soul has
o f it, thanks to this very light which gives vision to the soul
and not another light” (ibid.).
6 Inge has remarked that perhaps Plotinus utilizes the w ord “ O ne” only
because the Greeks had no symbol for zero. He calls “ O ne” that which
Scotus Erigena, in the De divisione naturae, calls nihil (The Philosophy of
PlotinuSy II, 107-8).

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But contact and light are only images intended to reveal

that, in this state, the normal conditions o f consciousness
have disappeared. There is no longer a thing which sees and a
thing which is seen: “ When one beholds the First Principle,
one does not behold it as different from one’s self, but as one
with one’s self” (vi. 9. 10). “ There is no longer any inter­
mediary. Both [Soul and God] are one. As long as this pres­
ence continues, no distinction is possible” (vi. 7. 34).
In the preceding chapter, the One appeared to us as the
principle o f reason, the leaven o f the intellectual life. Here it
appears to us as the opposite o f this life, purely irrational, the
object o f an ineffable experience, which Plotinus describes,
when he is willing to describe it in terms o f sensible experi­
ence, as the object o f a contact or a vision. The One ap­
peared above as part o f a rational system. Here it is outside
the system.
That this is a central difficulty in Neoplatonism is ob­
viously indicated by the historical development o f the sys­
tem. In Damascius, the last great representative o f Greek
Neoplatonism in the sixth century, these two aspects o f the
theory o f the One ended by splitting into two distinct reali­
ties. Underneath the trinitarian system o f the hypostases,
constituted by the One, Life, and Intelligence, Damascius
placed an underlying reality, which he refused to designate
by any term other than the word “ ineffable.” The ineffable
is specifically free from any conceivable relation to the pro­
cession o f the hypostases.
Could there coexist already in Plotinus the two meta­
physics which eventually emerged from him: on the one
hand, an ¿rationalist metaphysics affirming the decidedly ex­
ceptional character o f the principle, which in Damascius*
phrase is “ not more principle than non-principle,” and, on

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the other hand, a rational metaphysics in which the principle

is the first term o f the system o f reality?
Since such a conclusion is very far from the intentions o f
Plotinus, we must see how he met the difficulty. It is neces­
sary to explain the following paradoxical statement: “ Noth­
ing can be like it [the One], yet there must be things like it”
(v. 5. 10), where in the same sentence he denies and affirms
the possibility o f finding a common measure between the
One and things. Is this anything but incoherence?
Let us clearly contrast the two points o f view. Platonic ra­
tionalism is the affirmation o f the transcendence o f the One,
the universal measure o f things, which, consequendy, is un­
like them. The theory o f ecstasy is the affirmation o f the im­
manence o f Soul and Intelligence in the One. The Platonic
doctrine affirms a bond o f external dependence between the
One and the many. The One is external to the many as the
unit o f measure is to the things measured. This transcendence
alone guarantees the trustworthy operation o f reason. The
immanence o f things within the One, on the other hand,
abolishes these boundaries.
N ow the doctrine peculiar to Plotinus maintains that the
Platonic transcendence, rightly interpreted, fundamentally
implies immanence. It affirms, in other words, that there can
be no real continuity in the sphere o f spiritual realities if there
is no absorption o f the lower reality into the higher. It is a
question not o f immanence as the Stoics conceived it—
namely, o f the circulation and dispersion o f the first principle
through things—but quite the contrary, o f what one might
call the immanence in the transcendent, o f an absorption o f
things into their principle.7 “ The being which proceeds from
7 C f. A m ou’s fine discussion, op. cit., pp. 162 if.

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the One does not sever itself from it, although it is not iden­
tical with it” (v. 3. 12).
“ The Soul is not in the universe; but the universe is in it;
for the body is not a place for the Soul. The Soul is contained
in Intelligence, and the body is contained in the Soul. Intelli­
gence is in another principle. But this other principle itself
has nothing different in which to exist; thus it is not in any­
thing, and in this sense it exists nowhere. Where then do the
other things exist? In it. Then it is not absent from the other
things, although it does not exist in them” (v. 5. 9).
That the continuity between spiritual things cannot be
purely and simply external, as if things were arranged along
a line, is an absolutely universal principle in the philosophy o f
Plotinus, o f which we have observed numerous instances.
Souls, through their higher parts, blend with each other and
form but one single Soul. The Soul itself coincides at its apex
with Intelligence, through that which, in the Soul itself, is no
longer a Soul. It is in the same way that “ Intelligence which
loves” ceases to be “ Intelligence which thinks,” and enters
into communion with the One. “ Nothing is discontinuous
with what precedes it in the hierarchy” (v. 2 .1) . “ Each thing
becomes identical with its guide, in so far as it follows the
guide” (ibid. 2).
On the other hand, this union is in no wise a confusion or a
mixture, as if the higher principle were dissipated in things.
“ The simple reality o f the One, different from all the things
which proceed from it, exists in itself and is not mixed with
the things which come after it. Moreover, this reality has an­
other way in which it is present to them” (v. 4. 1). This other
way o f being present to them does not consist in descending
and in mixing with them but in causing them to rise to it.
“ Among the things which come after the First, the second is

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restored to the First, and the third to the second” (ibid.). “ All
things, so to speak, return to the One” (v. 2. 1). “ All things
are the First because they proceed from it” (ibid. 2).
Immanence, thus conceived, seems to be for Plotinus not
the opposite but, on the contrary, the condition o f genuine
transcendence. Any other supposition would cut the spiritual
bonds which must exist between the Source and the beings
which proceed from it. The derived being which would have
no intimate knowledge o f its bond with the Source would be
lost in the infinite, like matter. The derivation is not based on
a purely external relation knowable from without. We do
not have things and then a mind which recognizes them. The
intimate work o f the mind is not different from reality itself.
“ Thought gives existence to beings.” But this intimate
knowledge o f the source can only be a communion with the
source. It can only be ecstasy.
Hence the significance and the importance which Plotinus
attaches to the phenomenon o f ecstasy. The rare, exceptional,
and momentary form in which it occurs in the soul that is
connected with a body does not prevent it from being the
normal and needful state o f the soul and o f Intelligence.
Communion with the One and thought o f multiplicity are,
de jure as well as de facto, inseparable. “ Has Intelligence the
vision o f beings part by part in another time series than that
in which it possesses this other vision [ecstasy]? A didactic
exposition presents these visions as events. But in reality In­
telligence always possesses both thought and this non-think-
ing state in which it has a vision o f the One which is different
from thought. For in beholding the One, Intelligence pos­
sesses the beings engendered in the One, while through its
consciousness it recognizes these engendered beings within
itself. N ow seeing them is what one calls thinking. But Intel­

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ligence also sees the One through this very power which en­
ables it to think” (vi. 7. 35; cf. v. 3. 7). Thus ecstasy com­
pletes and fructifies the spiritual life.
But does not this state abolish knowledge itself along with
the distinction o f subject and object? An opponent asks,
“ how shall we exist in beauty if we do not see it?” “ The fact
is,” replies Plotinus, “ that as long as we see it as something
different from ourselves, we do not yet exist in beauty. We
exist in the beautiful only if we have become the beautiful
itself” (v. 8. 11). This resembles the state o f sickness and o f
health. Sickness is felt sharply, whereas we are hardly con­
scious of health. This is so because sickness causes us to escape
from ourselves. Health consists, on the contrary, in a state of
union with our real essence.
We see the significance of Plotinus’ effort to unite ration­
alism and mysticism in an intimate relationship. Fundamen­
tally, mystical knowledge is for him only the indisputable
and living experience that satisfies the yearning for unity,
that is to say, the fundamental aspiration o f reason. This be­
lief in unity is universal; it is the presupposition of all thought
(vi. 5. 1): “ That one and the same thing can exist in its en­
tirety and everywhere at once is a universal notion; and a
spontaneous movement o f thought prompts men to speak o f
God who exists in each o f us. This is indeed the best-estab­
lished principle of all. . . . It is even prior to the principle
which holds that all things desire the good. All that is re­
quired for it to be true is that all things possess the desire for
unity, that they aspire after unity and form a unity.”
That which exists in things must exist in us too. As the
three hypostases are in the nature of things, we must believe
that they are also in us, that is to say, in that inner man of
which Plato speaks. “ There exists in us the source and the
cause o f Intelligence, which is God” (v. 1. 10 -11). Ecstasy

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then only reveals us to ourselves. In general, directing one’s

self toward the higher principle is not coming out of one’s
self but turning inward upon one’s self. “ Everything in the
soul orients itself toward Intelligence, exists as if internal to
it” (v. 3. 7). As to the One, “ when we attain to pure Intelli­
gence, we see that the One is the very foundation of Intelli­
gence” (ibid. 14).
W e must still try to understand why Plotinus thus posed
the problem, why he undertook this religious interpretation
o f rationalism. It is obvious that, between a purely rational
conception o f the systematic order o f forms, such as the gen­
eration o f the hypostases would be when viewed externally,
and the inward penetration or union upon which Plotinus
insists in order to give it its full meaning, the whole differ­
ence lies in the attitude o f the self, in its relation to the objects
which it contemplates. In the first case, the self is like a pas­
sive mirror whose only virtue consists in being without
blemish in order to reflect objects. In the second case, the self
is transformed in its depth through knowledge. It partici­
pates in the activity which produces the forms. Moreover, it
identifies itself with this activity o f all things. “ W e are all
beings. . . . The self does not know its own limits” ; these are
formulas which indicate that the development or decline of
the self are metamorphoses, assimilations o f the self to beings
at a different level to which the self may be united, “ the re­
semblance of the lover with the beloved.”
This emphasis upon our subjective state in the contempla­
tion o f things, this characteristic inability of the philosophy
o f Plotinus to grasp reality in itself and to consider each form
o f reality otherwise than in a relationship completely con­
fined to the state of the subject which recognized it, this shift­
ing from subject to object, necessitated the transformation of
rationalism.

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 T A / " THE SENSIBLE WORLD

AND MATTER

To understand the conception o f the

world in ancient philosophy, we must forget completely the
modern point o f view, the dualism introduced by Descartes,
according to whom the world is an object, a physical reality,
over against a subject o f another nature which contemplates
it. For an ancient, the world is, as the Stoics expressed it, “ a
whole composed o f the gods, o f men, and o f everything that
exists for them.” So it is for Plotinus. The world says con­
cerning itself: “ It is God who made me, and having come
from him, I am perfect. I include all living beings, and I lack
nothing, for I contain all beings, plants, animals, and every­
thing that may be born. I have within myself many gods,
hosts o f daemons, lofty souls, and men who find happiness in
virtue. The earth did not embellish itself with plants and liv­
ing creatures o f every kind, the sea did not receive the vital
power into itself, in order that the air, the ether, and the
heavens may be entirely without life. Up yonder dwell the
virtuous souls. They impart life to the stars and to the eternal
circuit o f the heavens which, in the likeness o f Intelligence,
revolves in a circular movement, wisely ordered, always
around the same center without seeking anything beyond.
All beings which exist in me desire the Good, and each at­
tains it according to its capacity. The whole firmament de-

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pends upon it, just as my whole soul, the gods who are in my
very parts, all the animals and the apparently lifeless beings
which I contain. The latter participate only in existence.
Plants have life. Animals possess feeling besides. Some pos­
sess reason, and others universal life. From these beings which
are unequal, we must not expect equal activity. We must not
ask sight o f the finger, but only o f the eye. O f the finger, we
should ask, I think, that it be a finger and fulfil its functions”
(iii. 2. 3).
This passage condenses all the characteristics o f the Plo-
tinian doctrine o f the sensible world: divine origin; perfec­
tion derived from the fulness o f being; all the elements in­
habited by living beings, the heavens and the air, the earth
and the water. The hierarchy o f beings extends from the
gods who impart life to the stars down to inorganic matter
through the daemons, the virtuous souls, the rational beings,
the animals, and the plants. There is no being which is not
living, even those which in appearance are lifeless. Each has
within this whole its proper and indispensable function for
the harmony o f the whole.
It is easy to see that this description o f the world, in which
the stress is placed upon the divine perfection o f the universe,
has its origin in the Timaeus. Plato, after having described the
whole and the parts o f the universe down to its minutest de­
tails, concludes: “ Having received into itself all living mor­
tals and immortals, and filled completely with them, the
visible Living containing all the visible living beings—the
sensible God formed in the likeness o f the intelligible God,
the greatest, best, fairest, and the most perfect—the World
was bom; it is the one only begotten heaven.”
The world is not a collection o f parts but a whole within
which the parts are engendered. It is not a mass o f living

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beings but “ a blessed god who is sufficient to himself” (iii.

5* 5)> "a perfect being, without defects, independent, pos­
sessing nothing which is contrary to its nature” (iv. 8. 2).
“ It is,” says Plotinus in terms which recall the religious ideas
o f Philo o f Alexandria, “ an offspring o f the intelligible God,
an offspring o f supreme beauty . . . an offspring which,
alone among all the others, manifests itself outwardly, the
last born o f God” (v. 8. 12).

But here a difficulty appears. Do these in­

telligible realities with which the world is filled, namely, the
Soul o f the world, the souls o f the stars, daemons, human
souls, the principles o f life in general, really belong to the
sensible world? Are they different from those which we have
found in the bosom o f the intelligible realities? Plotinus is
very far from thinking so. Indeed, the Soul o f the world and
all the individual souls have their abode and, as it were,
their native place in the intelligible world. There they con­
tinue to live immutably and indestructibly in a full and per­
fect life, their gaze turned toward Intelligence and, through
Intelligence, toward the Good. Far from a contradiction ex­
isting between this immutable life in the bosom o f the intel*
ligible reality and the souls* role as animators and organizers
o f the sensible world, it is precisely because “ they are not
descending,” because they “ remain on high,” that they are
enabled to play this role. There does not exist for Plotinus
(and this, we shall see, is the principle o f what might be
called his physics) a creative or productive action which is
different from the spiritual or contemplative act, none which
constitutes an addition to that act. “ All production as such is
contemplation.* *The creation or ordering o f the sensible uni­
verse is necessarily dependent upon spiritual vision, just as the

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illumination o f space depends upon the sole presence o f the

sun. Plotinus does not mean then that the order o f the uni­
verse is the result o f design and o f deliberate will. That would
be to lower the Demiurge and, in general, nature to the rank
o f a human artisan whose ideas are realized only through
mechanical means. The creative Soul “ is always illuminated.
It perpetually possesses the light which it gives to inferior
things. These things, always sustained by it and bathed in its
rays, enjoy life to the fullest extent o f their ability. Thus
everything warms itself as much as it can at the fire round
about which it moves” (ii. 9. 3). To the Gnostics who claim
that the Soul created the world “ after having lost its wings”
and who thus make o f the creation o f the world the inferior
work o f a wicked demiurge, Plotinus objects: “ To fall in
this manner [for the Soul] is obviously to forget the intel­
ligibles; and had it forgotten them, how could it have fash­
ioned the world?” (ibid. 4).
The action is not different in nature from the action
through which we have seen the Good produce Intelligence,
and Intelligence, Soul. Taking place at a lower stage, how­
ever, it is no longer capable o f producing a hypostasis which
in its turn may be creative. The light which emanates from it
engenders, on encountering matter as a sort o f mirror, that
image o f the intelligible world which is the sensible world.

Before considering what the Demiurge is,

what matter is, and what mediates between the Demiurge and
matter, let us indicate briefly Plotinus’ position in regard to
views different from his, namely, those o f the literal inter­
preters o f the Timaeus, o f the Stoics, and o f the Gnostics. In
the Timaeus Plato presents the Demiurge as deciding, after
reflection, to form the Soul o f the world in the manner in

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which Athenian workmen made the planetariums, and as in­

structing the lower artisans how to form souls and bodies.
This implied that the world had a beginning. Like many in­
terpreters before him, Plotinus retains nothing o f the anthro­
pomorphic aspect o f the myth, since he rejected all delibera­
tion and all mechanical action. He preserves only the series o f
the hypostases, the Demiurge, the Soul o f the world, and the
lower demiurges. Nor can he admit that the world had a be­
ginning. Since the spiritual vision upon which it depends is
eternal, the world which is the image o f this vision must al­
ways exist in a time without beginning or end, a time which
he calls with Plato the image o f eternity. O f course he im­
agines this time as the circular time o f eternal recurrence:
“ The limits o f the duration o f the universe are fixed by im­
mutable reasons. At the end o f a given time, the universe
returns always to the same state, in the measured alternation
o f its periodic lives” (iv. 3. 12). The time in which the uni­
verse exists thus presents this cyclical movement o f departure
and return, which is, as it were, the Plotinian scheme o f all
existence. Neither it nor the universe is produced by an
original reality.
Plotinus accepted a great deal o f the Stoic description o f
the world. He took over their theory o f destiny, the Logos as
the dispenser o f fate, the sympathy o f the parts, providence,
and theodicy. But he adjusted these doctrines to the new ones
he supplied. For the Stoics, the world along with the gods
which it included was the supreme reality, and the only good
o f which they knew was conformity to the world. For Ploti­
nus, what there is o f the divine in the world, and especially
our souls, belongs to a reality superior to the world. Our
souls then cannot be subordinated to the sensible world. As
spiritual beings, they are independent o f it. They are not at

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all bound to it by fate (iii. i). They rule it, since in reality
they produce it, each soul being for the body which it gov­
erns what the Soul o f the world is for the whole. Plotinus is a
believer in Providence and accordingly in Final Causality.
But in him final causality is not, as in the Stoics, an adapta­
tion, willed by an Intelligence, o f organs to needs—an adap­
tation which would imply that the Demiurge foresees the
dangers that creatures may encounter. In Plotinus final cau­
sality is, rather, a sort o f principle o f maximal being, what
Leibniz was to express by the formula: “ the fulness o f
forms.,, “ The form o f a being contains all its properties, and
it fills matter. To fill matter means not to leave any part
without form. . . . Why are there eyes? So that the body
may have all its parts. Why the eyebrows? So that it may
have everything.” In consequence, Providence consists only
in the fact that matter receives, through the very nature o f
things, the maximum o f being which it is capable o f receiv­
ing. This is why, while Plotinus makes use, in his theodicy, o f
the hackneyed Stoic argument concerning the harmony of
the whole requiring the limitation o f the parts, his reasoning
sounds nevertheless a different note. Whereas the order o f the
world is, in the Stoics, the supreme order to which matter
offers no resistance, it is, in Plotinus, a derivative order which
finds its limits in the capacity o f matter to receive it. “ Order
exists in it because it has been introduced into it. Because
there is order, there is disorder. Because there is law and rea­
son, there is lawlessness and irrationality. Not that the best
produces the worst, but the things which aspire to the best
are incapable o f receiving it, either on account o f their nature
or through the coincidence o f circumstances and through
obstacles that have come from elsewhere. The being which
possesses only a borrowed order may fail to attain it either

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because o f causes which depend upon itself or through the

fault o f other beings. And often other beings cause it to suffer
an injury without willing it, aiming as they do at an alto­
gether different goal” (iii. 2. 4). Conflicts between men are
explained in the following way: “ The wrongs which men do
to each other have as cause their aspirations for the good. As
they fail to attain it, they go astray and turn against each
other” (ibid). I f the evil in the sensible world is irremediable,
the good for the sage will not consist in submitting to it but
in escaping from it in order to return to his real home, to the
perfect order o f the intelligible world.
Thus interpreted, the sensible world seems to assume for
Plotinus a coloration similar to that given it by the Gnostics.
Like them, he preached the return o f the soul from its place
o f exile back to its native land. Yet there is no one whom he
more bitterly attacked than the Gnostics, who abuse the
Demiurge and are unacquainted with the intelligible world,
who ascribe a beginning and an end to the sensible world and
deny Intelligence to the suns and to the stars, and finally, for
whom salvation is confined to the chosen few. In contrast to
them, he makes the most o f the beauty o f the world, o f
Providence, and to such an extent that one wonders how his
praise, which seems to be made without any reservation, is
compatible with his description o f the world as the land of
exile and the habitation o f evil.

This double appraisal brings out clearly

the state o f tension to which the image o f the sensible world
gives rise in Plotinus. The admiration for its beauty arises
from the fact that we see in it the intelligible beings whose
radiation has produced it. The disparagement o f the world,
on the contrary, arises because, in referring these beings to

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the intelligible world o f which they are members, Plotinus

considers only the equivocal and incomplete way in which
this radiation has been received and the ugliness o f matter
which has obscured its brilliance. When he takes the first
point of view, he has already returned to “ the beloved native
land,” since he is at the level o f the Demiurge and o f the Soul
o f the world, which remain immutably close to Intelligence.
When he takes the second point o f view, he perceives only
the blending o f light with darkness and, through a sort o f
abstraction, separates the radiation from its source. This sort
o f pendulum movement in the thought or, rather, imagina­
tion of Plotinus with regard to the sensible world is indis­
pensable for the understanding o f the twofold value, positive
and negative, that this world possesses for him. Twice at
least, he has indicated this with precision. “ Evils,” he says,
“ proceed from the mixture; for the nature o f this world is
mixed, and if we were to remove from it the universal Soul
which is separate from the body, very little would remain.
The world is a god i f we take this Soul into account; remove
it [the Soul] and there remains, as Plato says,1 a great daemon
which possesses the passions proper to it” (ii. 3. 9). And else­
where he emphatically affirms that it is solely through ab­
straction that we can consider the body without the soul
through which alone it exists with its forms and its qualities.
“ Since the mixture or the combination which forms the
sensible world includes a soul and a body, and since the na­
ture o f the soul belongs to the intelligible world and does not
belong to the same order as what we call the sensible sub­
stance, we must, however difficult it may be, eliminate the
soul from the present inquiry [concerning sensible sub­
stance], as, in classifying the citizens o f a town according to
1 Symposium 202A.

17 1
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

offices or professions, we pass over the foreigners who live in

the town” (vi. 3. 1). A modern reader finds it somewhat dif­
ficult to believe that the body is not posited as an absolute to
which the soul comes to be added later. Let us recall, how­
ever, that some modern philosophers, like Leibniz and Kant,
consider that matter does not possess within itself any prin­
ciple o f unity and that this principle must be sought in mind
or in something analogous to mind.

We may now state what the Demiurge is,

what the influence is which emanates from it, and what
matter is which receives this influence.
Plotinus defined the demiurgic function with greater pre­
cision than he did the Demiurge itself. This function, we
have seen, consists in radiation. But from what being does
this radiation proceed? From the Soul, it seems, which is the
third hypostasis intermediate between Intelligence and the
sensible world. The author o f the cosmic order “ is the order
itself; it is the act o f a Soul dependent upon a wisdom which
dwells in the intelligible and which has its image in the order
which dwells in the soul” (iv. 4. 10). Here then we have the
hierarchy: Intelligence, intelligible order, Soul, image o f the
intelligible order or act o f the Soul. It is this inner order
which is the directing principle, and we can distinguish a
hierarchical relation in it too, that o f the Demiurge or the
Universal Soul and the World-Soul, both being referred to
by the mythological figure o f Zeus. Sometimes, and espe­
cially in two o f his treatises (iii. 2 and 3), in order to express
this order either at the level o f the Intelligible (iii. 2. 2) or at
the level o f the Soul (iii. 3 .3 ), Plotinus uses the Stoic expres­
sion Logos, which relates less to the static order o f the hier­
archy o f beings than to the order o f their destinies. It is the

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Logos which assigns the lots, which regulates the ascent and
the descent o f souls in accordance with Justice.
The Logos brings out a trait o f the work o f the Plotinian
Demiurge better than the usual Platonic concepts. It is the
division o f the universal order, which contains everything,
into partial orders o f which each determines the function o f
each part. The universal reason is thus divided into partial
reasons, those which cause fire to burn, those which enable a
horse or a man to perform his functions, each o f the parts re­
maining within the universe. Thus the theory o f the Demi­
urge is treated in the same way as that o f the souls, o f the
seminal reasons, and o f the Aristotelian forms. The Soul o f
the universe outlines, so to speak, the general plan whose de­
tails these derived forms fulfil. The human soul is one o f
these forms, which has for its mission the organization o f the
body. Thus the creation o f the whole is repeated in a multi­
tude o f partial creations whose order appears, on the one
hand, in the hierarchy o f the genera and o f the species and,
on the other hand, in the recurrence o f the periods and the
cycle o f generation and corruption.
But as we have said, the Demiurge does not himself enter
into matter to form the sensible universe, any more than the
partial souls or forms or reasons mix with the body in order
to give it form. They possess efficacy only on condition that
they “ remain above.” What proceeds from them into bodies
is a radiation or a power, like an image which has preserved
something o f the power o f the model. “ In the body the form
is an image . . . yonder the form is a reality” (ii. 4. 5).
“ What Intelligence gives to the Soul borders upon true real­
ity, but that which the body receives is an image and an imi­
tation” (v. 9. 3).
I f the form which unites with matter is not the real essence

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but its image, it follows that Plotinus’ assertion that a body is

always a compound o f form and matter cannot be taken in
the sense in which it is understood in Aristotle, who intro­
duced it into philosophy. In the latter the “ hylomorphic”
compound gives birth to a concrete being which is really
one. This is not the case with the Neoplatonist. First, the
form-image has a more intimate connection with the model
from which it has issued than with the matter which it comes
to illuminate. “ It arises, in the thing generated, from a con­
version toward the generator” (iii. 6. i). Or if it unites with
matter while forgetting its own origin, we have, as it were, a
sort o f defect. The situation with all the forms is the same as
with the human soul, whose lower part, allowing itself to be
seduced by the image o f itself offered to it by matter, unites
with this image in withdrawing itself from the ground o f its
own reality. Besides, matter is not such that it is really able to
unite with form. Without doubt, Plotinus often employs the
Aristotelian terminology in a way which can be misleading,
but his thought is very different. Whereas Aristotle more
often than not considers only the “ proximate matter,” like
the bronze in a statue—that is to say, the matter which has
already received form and which needs only one further con­
dition to become a complete being—Plotinus, with excep­
tions, means by matter only prime matter which is alto­
gether indeterminate, not even possessing a certain measur­
ability. Over this matter, form passes like a reflection with­
out leaving any traces. Matter, “ incapable o f transforming it­
self, remains [after having received form] what it was at
first, namely, non-being, and that is what it always is. . . .
Desiring to be invested with forms, it does not even succeed
in retaining the reflection o f them. . . . It is a weak and dim
phantom which is incapable o f receiving a form” (ii. 5. 5).

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 The Sensible World and Matter

This is why we find Plotinus clearly suggesting a doctrine

which in the thirteenth century was called the doctrine o f the
plurality o f forms. It consists in stating that the concrete
being exists only through the superposition o f several dis­
tinct and graded forms (the living being, for example,
through the forms o f corporealness, element, and life) whose
diversity and accumulation conceal matter rather than unite
with it (v. 8. 7). In Aristotle, a concrete being has only one
form, that which causes (proximate) matter to pass from po­
tentiality to actuality. Matter designates here the totality o f
conditions necessary for the purpose o f uniting with form.
But in Plotinus, as there is no such union, forms can be
added to one another without the concrete being ever be­
coming one. The sensible substance is, as it is in Locke, “ an
aggregate o f qualities and o f matter” (vi. 3. 8). One would
say that Plotinus dreads everything that might give some
consistency to the sensible world considered apart from the
Soul which governs it. Matter is “ a shadow, and on this shad­
ow are reflected images which are mere appearances” (ibid.).

These principles give rise to the very spe­

cial nature o f what one might call the Plotinian physics. The
question here is not one o f a well-defined field o f investiga­
tion, but o f the way in which Plotinus deals with the ques­
tions included under this head by Aristotle and the Stoics,
such as the questions concerning the nature o f bodies, the
elements, action and passion, mixture, the celestial move­
ments, time, and the nature o f living bodies. In all these ques­
tions the Plotinian method is always the same. It is a method
o f conversion which consists in excluding from matter and
bodies all positive reality that one might be tempted to at­
tribute to them, and in ascribing it to an action from above.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

It is, for example, saying something positive concerning mat­

ter to say that it possesses dimension. But that is a false asser­
tion. In reality a reason, having come into matter, gives to
matter the extension which it seeks to give to it. “ Matter has
reached an extension equal to that o f the universe. But if
heaven and all it contains ceased to exist, its magnitude
would disappear at the same time” (iii. 6. 16). Matter re­
ceives forms within extension because matter has already re­
ceived extension, which is a form (ibid. 17). It is alleged that
matter is a body, but it is nothing o f the kind. There is a form
or reason which is called corporealness and which produces
the body in entering into matter (ii. 7. 3). This form is a
certain “ density or resistance” which does not belong to
matter.
On a higher plane, we ascribe to bodies positive activities
which they really do not possess and which come to them
“ from above.” Plotinus takes into consideration two kinds o f
properties in a body: (1) the mass which is the resistant vol­
ume; (2) the qualities such as the elementary factors o f heat
and cold. To the first kind are linked the mechanical effects
o f impulse, impact, and weight, which lead to the destruc­
tion or disintegration o f the weakest body by the strongest
(iv. 7. 8 and iii. 6. 6). These mechanical effects appear then
closely connected in the thought o f Plotinus with the essence
o f bodies and do not presuppose the intervention o f any ex­
traneous form. But, on the other hand, these impacts o f inert
bodies produce nothing positive, only destruction and hin­
drance (iv. 3. 10, 18, 4), and we know how much Plotinus
was opposed to all mechanical explanation o f phenomena.
As regards the qualities that the bodies which possess them
impart to others, such as warmth or coldness or other similar

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qualities, they depend in no way upon the mass o f the bodies,

and we must regard them as incorporeal powers (iv. 7-8).
It is the nature o f the qualities which explains “ the com­
pleteness o f mixture.” B y this term the Stoics designated an
alleged interpenetration o f bodies (such as the penetration o f
red-hot iron by fire). This is attributing to bodies themselves
a property which belongs only to their incorporeal qualities
(ii. 7. 3)-
The qualities o f bodies indicate especially the presence o f
the incorporeal in bodies. When, for example, one classifies
the elements or simple bodies as fire, air, water, and earth,
one classifies them according to their degree o f corporeal­
ness. One puts fire at the top, which in its activity and its
mobility is closest to the incorporeal (i. 6. 3). At the bottom
is earth, which is inert. Movement is, as it were, the life o f
bodies; “ it stirs, drives, excites, and pushes them. It causes
them to participate in it in order that they may not fall
asleep. . . . It is because they have no rest but are kept active
that a phantom o f life sustains them” (vi. 3. 23).
I f now one takes the sensible substance in its totality, that is
to say, as a resistant mass together with qualities, one often
assigns to these “ corporeal causes” positive effects which they
do not possess. Thus certain astrologers attribute the action o f
stars upon man to purely physical properties. The cold or the
warm, the moist or dry, inherent in each star, are said to pro­
duce the physical constitution o f bodies which differ among
themselves according to the predominance o f the warm or
the cold, and, through them, the moral difference between
characters (iv. 4. 31). Plotinus mentions numerous interpre­
tations o f the same kind that “ attribute everything to bod­
ies,” which endeavor, “ with the irregular movement result­
ing from them, to engender order, reason, and the governing

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Soul” (iii. I. 3). Bodies are incapable o f engendering any pas­

sion proper to the Soul. It is still more impossible to say with
the Stoics that the Soul is a body, since the body is, in itself, a
multiplicity without any principle o f unity (vi. 1.2 6 ).
The properties o f the elementary bodies are not only un­
able to explain the sensations, passions, and thoughts o f the
soul, but they cannot even give an account o f the circular
movement o f the heavens. Aristotle had made this move­
ment the property o f a fifth element, attributing to it the
cyclical movement, just as he made the movement upward
depend upon the nature o f fire. To Plotinus the Aristotelian
thesis possesses the same materialistic character as that o f the
Stoics. The circular movement o f the heavens is “ not a local
but a vital movement; it is the vital movement o f a single
animated being, acting only in itself, motionless in relation
to what is external to it, and mobile on account o f the
eternal life which exists in it” (iv. 4. 8). There is no fifth ele­
ment, and the heavens are made o f fire. It is the influence o f
the Soul which bends fire into a circle, while the natural
movement o f fire is upward (ii. 1).
These examples, which could easily be multiplied, indi­
cate the nature o f physical explanation in Plotinus. It con­
sists in first stripping matter and then bodies o f all positive
realities which experience reveals to us as existing in them,
inasmuch as, at each level, these realities are traces o f the
Soul. One will be a good natural philosopher to the extent
that one knows how to convert the sensible world into spirit,
a very different thesis from that o f Aristotle, and one which,
in certain respects, sounds much more modern if it is true
that our physics is far more the description o f the intelligible
relations which underlie our immediate experience than the
description o f that experience itself.

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Once this interpretation o f the sensible

world has been worked out, the very notion o f the sensible
evaporates, so to speak, and matter remains a residue, com­
parable to a “ bitter sediment left by evaporation” (ii. 3. 17).
B y a kind o f paradox, matter has two o f the characteristics
which are essential to intelligible being. It is impassive, in the
sense in which the mirror is unchanged by the reflections
which appear in it (iii. 6. 7), and it is incorporeal and without
magnitude, since, as we have seen, corporealness and magni­
tude are forms or reasons (ibid. 12). In order to show the
necessity and nature o f this relation, Plotinus abundantly
utilized the well-known passages from the Timaeus concern­
ing x^pci. He did not neglect Aristotle either, and it is from
him that Plotinus borrows the theses that matter is always a
term relative to something else (ii. 4. 13) and that it exists
only potentially (ii. 5. 2). However, Plotinus adds the trait,
which is almost absent from his two sources, that matter is
the primary evil (i. 8. 3) and that it is the cause o f evil for the
Soul and even for the rational part o f the Soul (ibid. 4). It is
not easy to interpret the thought o f Plotinus on this point.
We have observed that Plotinus seems to adopt at times,
concerning the origin o f evil, the theses o f the Stoic theodicy
which make evil an inevitable accompaniment o f the cosmic
harmony. But here evil, like matter, appears as a sort o f
absolute opposed to the Good—as darkness, obscure depths,
irrationality, opposed to light and to reason (vi. 3. 7; ii. 4. 5)
—as exhibiting a baneful activity, seeking to arrogate to it­
self the form which dwells in it, “ to attach to form its own
absence o f form, to the proportioned being its own excess
and lack o f measure,” doing its best through its agitation
“ to impair the work o f the reasons.” Matter appears, as in

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Manichaeism, as a positive principle o f evil, an Ahriman de­

stroyer o f the order o f Ormuzd.
But this can be so only in appearance. For the divine real­
ity is secure from all contact with the impure. There is not
the least suspicion o f struggle and rivalry between the divine
beings and matter. If Plotinus appeared to speak o f a sort o f
positive action o f evil, he now insists, on the other hand, on
the unreality and the weakness o f matter. It is non-being (ii.
5. 4), phantom (ibid. 5), shadow (ii. 6. 18), inactive (ibid.),
veritable delusion (ii. 5.5), symbolized by the eunuchs who
follow the Great Mother (iii. 6. 19).
To this conflict o f the two views on the nature o f matter is
added another o f the same sort concerning its origin. Plo­
tinus expounds, without taking sides, two hypotheses on this
point: “ Either matter has always existed . . . or else its crea­
tion is a necessary consequence o f antecedent causes” (iv.
8. 6). In the first case, it is a term distinct from the realities
which proceed progressively from the One, and it may set
itself against these realities. In the second case, it is the last
term in the procession o f the realities, that is to say, the sterile
stage in which the productive force which has proceeded
from the One at last dies out.
Let us note also that these two conflicts, so much alike in
themselves, are also parallel to the one which we pointed out
elsewhere when discussing the “ descent o f the soul into the
body.” This descent is interpreted sometimes as a weakness
o f the Soul which abandons the intelligible world in order to
unite with the body, sometimes as a participation in the gov­
ernment o f the universe, a blessing o f the Soul which il­
luminates the body with light. There is, in all these conflicts,
a common trait and even a trait which we find throughout
the metaphysics o f Plotinus. For him, no reality is static. He

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can conceive o f reality only within the double dynamism o f

procession-conversion, o f the procession which causes a real­
ity to stray far from the center from which it emanates, o f
the conversion which causes it to turn back toward the cen­
ter. But the procession in the realities subsequent to the soul
results from a sort o f magical fascination exercised by an in­
ferior reality. Thus the soul is fascinated by the body, as Nar­
cissus by his reflection. The conversion, contrariwise, by
leading reality back to its source, shows the procession to be
a benefit conferred by the soul upon the body.
The double view concerning matter may be explained by
the same principles. Matter appears first as that which at­
tracts and in a way fascinates the reasons and the forms.
Afterward, when one converts them toward their intelligible
principles, one sees only the illumination which proceeds
from them and which, in bathing matter, gives to it this last
degree o f existence, quite close to non-being. The attraction
downward is thus continually corrected by the return to the
source, so that one finally arrives at a conception o f matter
which plays the double role, as primary evil, o f attracting the
forms, and, as the last hypostasis, o f being the reality that is
the limit from which no procession and, therefore, no con­
version are any longer possible.

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 CONCLUSION

In concluding, I wish to point out the

new type o f idealism which was introduced by Plotinus’ sys­
tem into the philosophical thought o f the West, the persist­
ence o f which may be observed down to our day. Not that I
consider Plotinian thought an entity in itself which was
purely and simply added to prevailing ideas and maintained
in full in later thought. The history o f philosophy does not
reveal to us ideas existing in themselves, but only the men
who think. Its method, like every historical method, is nom-
inalistic. Ideas do not, strictly speaking, exist for it. It is only
concrete and active thoughts that exist. The problems which
philosophers pose and the solutions they offer are the reac­
tions o f original thought operating under given historical
circumstances and in a given environment. It is permissible,
no doubt, to consider ideas or the representations o f reality
which result from these reactions in isolation. But thus iso­
lated, they are like effects without causes. We may indeed
classify systems under general titles. But classifying them is
not giving their history.
It may be asked whether nominalism does not end in dis­
solving the history o f philosophy into a cloud o f individuali­
ties with no mutual connection. This is not at all the case; for

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nothing prevents tendencies from spreading from one indi­

vidual to another, with the aversions and affinities which
they manifest toward a given problem or solution. A con­
tinuity may exist then in the history o f philosophy. But we
see in the great currents o f thought which connect individual
consciousnesses the same phenomenon which has been fa­
miliar to historians o f art for a long time. The creative vigor
becomes exhausted, and the original creations o f the early
stage give way to rigid and mechanically applied formulas. It
is only then that one can say a philosophical system exists as
such, as an idea. But by then it is also at the point o f death. A
new development will be obtained only through a new
original effort, which ends moreover less often in a creation
than in a rebirth, in a resumption o f direct contact with
earlier thought.
The nominalistic method does not prevent us from affirm­
ing continuity. Moreover, this method certainly does not
end, as one might think, in skepticism. I f there really is a con­
tinuity in philosophical thinking, if, in a word, a philosophy
is successful in the highest sense o f the term, it is because its
author has revealed to mankind profound tendencies which
until then had remained unsatisfied by our representation o f
reality. A true philosophical reform, such as that o f a Socrates
or o f a Descartes, always takes for its point o f departure a
confrontation o f the needs o f human nature with the repre­
sentation the mind forms o f reality. It is the sense o f a lack o f
correspondence between these needs and this representation
which, in exceptionally endowed minds, awakens the philo­
sophical vocation. Thus, little by little, philosophy reveals
man to himself. It is the reality o f his own needs, o f his own
inclinations, which forms the basis o f living philosophical
thought. A philosophy which does not give the impression

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o f being indispensable to the period in which it appears is

merely a vain and futile curiosity.
Thus, when I say that Plotinus introduced a new idealism
into Western philosophy, I do not mean this in the sense o f a
new idea which might be added to pre-existing ones, but in
the sense o f a demonstration o f a profound tendency which
transforms our representation o f reality.

First o f all, we must try to understand the

needs which are met by Plotinus’ theory o f the immanence o f
the Soul in the First Principle, the theory o f which ecstasy
gives, as it were, the experimental verification.
This need is the same as that we have seen at work in all
the rest o f Plotinus’ teachings. It is the need for discovering
in external reality not an inert and unyielding object but a
place favorable to spiritual activity. I have shown that this
was the procedure characteristic o f animistic physics, which
finally reduces every natural force to the contemplation o f
the form which is to be realized in a being. Production is a
contemplation. W e saw, in the next place, how the different
faculties of the Soul, from the highest to the lowest, are to be
considered as the diverse stages to which the spiritual life
may rise or sink. W e have seen how souls, united without
being lost in one and the same spiritual life, could also be sep­
arated or isolated, and thus how the whole problem o f the
destiny o f souls was reduced to that o f their spiritual life.
Finally, for Intelligence there are no objects which are ex­
ternal to it, a principle which would make o f the intellectual
life a happy accident, an accidental meeting which might not
have occurred. The intelligible is internal to Intelligence, that
is to say, Intelligence is thought directed toward itself and
thinks other beings only because it is thinking itself. The state

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o f the highest spiritual concentration, in which every external

object has disappeared, is at the same time the state in which
one knows the deepest reality.
It is then that “all is so completely present to life that noth­
ing any longer differs from it; such a life is the whole life, the
pure and perfect life which contains within it all the Soul and
all the Intelligence. It is then that it is sufficient in itself and
that it no longer seeks anything” (v. 3. 16).
Intelligence, like the Soul, is not a thing or external object.
They both are the stages o f a life which becomes increasingly
internal to itself, more and more autonomous and free. He
who has arrived at Intelligence “ does not possess this life as a
thing distinct from himself” (i. 4. 4).
But will the spiritual life, this gradual process o f enfran­
chisement and o f becoming internal to itself, stop with Intel­
ligence? Not at all. “ We must confine its thought to the
veritable One, foreign to all multiplicity, the One which
possesses all simplicity and which is really simple” (v. 3. 16).
In order really to understand this necessity o f the spiritual
life to go beyond itself, we must present the relations o f In­
telligence and the One in a new way, availing ourselves espe­
cially o f the eighth treatise o f the sixth Ennead, one o f the
profoundest o f the entire work o f Plotinus. In the intellectual
life, Plotinus finds chiefly freedom and liberation. Action, in
its external aspect, can never be free. It is only through con­
straint that virtue has a practical operation. “ In so far as vir­
tue remains in itself, it is free and liberates the soul. As a con­
sequence o f inevitable circumstances, it has to direct the pas­
sions and action. But it did not seek to do that, and in spite o f
everything, it continues in these circumstances to depend
only upon itself. The fact is that it brings all activity into its
own sphere. It is not subordinated to things. For example, if

**5
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

it so pleases, it does not deliver the body from peril but aban­
dons it. It directs man to renounce his life, his riches, his chil­
dren, and even his country” (vi. 8. 6).
Thus detachment and sacrifice are considered the symbols
and expression o f radical freedom.
It is obvious that there is, in freedom thus understood,
something other and greater than the simple inner dynamism
o f an Intelligence which finds within itself the laws and rules
o f its own thought. In Intelligence o f the Platonic type, free­
dom consisted solely in the independence o f dialectic which,
through an altogether internal necessity, produced or at least
found its objects in focusing its thought upon itself. The
question here is o f a deeper and greater inward freedom,
since it is not a prisoner o f any o f the forms o f reality. This
super intellectual freedom is “ this nature which we feel some­
times in ourselves. It contains none o f those things which are
linked to us and which oblige us to submit to the accidents o f
fortune. Except for it, everything which concerns us is deter­
mined by chance and happens according to fortune. Through
it alone we possess mastery over ourselves, and independ­
ence.” N ow this nature is that which, in us, corresponds to
the One or to the Good. “ It is the act o f a light similar to the
Good, one which, in its goodness, is superior to Intelligence.
. . . Let us reascend to it. Let us become this light alone and
leave the rest. What shall we say then but that we are more
than free and more than independent? . . . W e have become
the genuine Life, or we live in this Life which possesses noth­
ing but itself” (ibid. 15).
The One appears here as the substance of the spiritual life
and, at the same time, the real foundation o f its autonomy.
“ The One is within all things and in their depths” (ibid. 18).
Far from being considered as a thing foreign to us, it alone

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 Conclusion

reveals ourselves to us. Above all, we must cease placing the

One and things side by side as two realities o f a different
order, as if we were to picture to ourselves, for example (and
here Plotinus evidently has in mind an interpretation o f the
Timaeus which is too literal), a chaotic mass diffused through
space, and the One intervening from without to set it in
order (ibid. n ) . For the One exists, on the contrary, in the
inner depths o f things. It is the universally diffused principle
thanks to which they become internal to themselves, that is
to say, really free (ibid. 13).
The Good causes us to be ourselves. “ The greater the por­
tion o f the good a being possesses, the more satisfied it is
with its essence, the more the essence approaches what the
being wishes to be, until finally the essence becomes one
with its will and its will causes the essence to exist. . . . The
presence o f the Good in a being does not depend upon chance
and is not foreign to its will. Its very essence is determined by
the Good and, thanks to it, it belongs to itself” (ibid.).
Therefore, “ when we soar up toward the Good, we can­
not say where the Good is. It appears everywhere before the
eyes o f our Soul. Wherever the Soul casts its glance, it sees
the Good” (ibid. 19).
The whole thought o f Plotinus tends to demonstrate that
the One is absolutely free, in the sense that it is not a thing
and that it has no essence. The intelligible being is what it is
in virtue o f its own essence or nature, and it is in this sense
that it is master of itself and is free. But the One possesses a
still greater freedom. “ The source which makes the essence
free . . . that which we may call the creator o f freedom, to
what could it be subject? To its own essence? But essence
owes its freedom to the source. The essence is posterior to the
source, and the source has no essence” (ibid. 12). It is then not

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master o f itself in the usual sense o f the term, since mastery o f

self implies at least a logical distinction between a ruling part
and a part which is ruled. Freedom, in the highest sense in
which Greek ethics had conceived it, consists in “ acting ac­
cording to nature.” Such freedom presupposes a nature
which is a final and irreducible datum. It is not yet the free­
dom o f the One “ which wishes to be what it is, and which is
what it wishes to be. Its will is one only with itself” (ibid. 13).
We may say that “ it produces itself” (ibid.), that “ it is its own
cause” (ibid. 14), but on condition that we make no distinc­
tion in it between the productive act and the product. “ Its
production o f itself is free from every obstacle. It does not
aspire to accomplish a deed. It is an act which does not exe­
cute a work but which is it already and completely. It and its
production of itself are not two things but only one. Its being
is identical with its production and, in a way, with its eternal
generation” (ibid. 20).
Plotinus* thesis concerning freedom in the One had met
with opposition, possibly within his own school. We judge
this from the objections which he examines in the treatise.
Indeed, his thesis must have given a severe shock to the
mental outlook o f men accustomed to Platonism and Stoi­
cism. The idea o f absolute freedom was foreign to Greek
philosophy. To place absolute freedom at the heart o f things,
was this not to lodge therein the accidental, chance, that is to
say, everything that an orthodox Greek mind was bound to
consider as a deficient and dependent reality? For the op­
ponents said virtually, either you make o f the One an eternal
being which is not created, and then “ it can avail itself only
o f what it is, in which case it is necessarily what it is and
nothing else” (ibid. 10); or, if we deny it any nature and any
essence, it is among the things which might be different from
what they are. It exists by chance or by accident (ibid. 9).

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 Conclusion

What we see most clearly through these objections is the

difficulty o f introducing the new idea into the old categories
o f Greek philosophy, namely, those o f essence and accident.
The reason is simple. These categories served to classify
things or objects. N ow the One o f Plotinus is neither a thing
nor an object. It is the pure, absolute, single subject, without
any relation to external objects. It is at the limit where every
determination o f the subject by an object, after being grad­
ually obliterated, has finally disappeared completely. I re­
mind the reader that Intelligence was a stage in this progres­
sive extinction. Whereas sensation and reasoning deal with
external objects, Intelligence is thought directed toward it­
self and no longer has any object except itself But there is
still a duality in it, at least ideally, between the subject and
the object, a determination o f the subject by the object. On
the other hand, in the One this limit has disappeared abso­
lutely. The One is no longer thought directed toward itself,
but it is, as Plotinus says quite simply, “ thought” (vi. 7. 37).
But thought is that which causes thinking beings to think
{ibid. 23). Thought itself does not think. The One is indeed
for Plotinus pure subject and similar to pure self. “ The first
hypostasis does not consist o f an inanimate thing, nor o f a
life without reason” (ibid. 1$). Already, in Intelligence action
is identical with being (ibid. 7). In the One the identity is
absolute. “ What the One loves in itself is an unchanging act
and a kind o f intelligence. . . . How does it exist? It is as if it
leaned and gazed upon itself That which corresponds to ex­
istence in it is this glance” (ibid. 16). What is a glance, or, as
he says elsewhere, an intuition which is no longer a thought,
if not the thinking activity in itself, the subjective activity, in
which every trace o f an object has disappeared?1
This interpretation has the following further argument in
1 “ It has turned completely toward itself, internal to itself’* (vi. 8. 17).

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THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

its favor. As long as Plotinus considers Intelligence as a com­

plex and intricate order, one easily distinguishes the One in it
as the principle o f this order and o f structure as such. But
when he designates by the word “ Intelligence” the state o f
perfect peaceful contemplation in which the object is com­
pletely absorbed in the subject, there is no longer any precise
distinction between Intelligence and the One. In order to re­
cover this distinction— for example, in the third treatise o f
the fifth Ennead—Plotinus was obliged to pass surreptitiously
from the second conception to the first and to oppose the
One less to thought directed toward itself than to the intel­
ligible order as Plato conceives it. Likewise, when Plotinus
speaks in the fourth and fifth treatises o f the sixth Ennead o f
the universal being with which the Soul is fundamentally
identical, we see indeed that by this universal being he means
to designate Intelligence. But from the way in which he de­
scribes the universal being, saying that it is all beings without
being any one o f them, that it is at once everywhere and no­
where, he gives to it the attributes which ordinarily refer to
the One.
This interpretation happens to be, moreover, that o f a man
who was particularly qualified through his mental disposi­
tion to comprehend Plotinus, namely, Hegel (his history o f
Greek philosophy, Werke, X V , 41). Replying to the objec­
tions o f those who make o f Plotinus a mystical enthusiast,
Hegel says that for Plotinus ecstasy was “ pure thought which
exists in itself [bei sich] and has itself for object.” “ Plotinus
had the idea that the essence o f God is thought itself and that
the essence is present in thought” (ibid., p. 39).
And that is why Plotinus has an answer for those who
reproach him for placing chance and accident with the One
at the heart o f things. The pure spontaneity which is “ like the

igo
 Conclusion

root o f the great tree o f the world” is “ a will which is neither

arbitrary nor accidental. A will which tends to perfection is
not arbitrary” (vi. 8.16). Without doubt, because the One is
“ an eternal watchfulness and a supra-Intellection” (ibid.), In­
telligence is able to draw its fixed and stable order from it.2

It follows from this that the One is not,

as one might think at first, the region where philosophic
thought leaves off in order to be transformed into the in­
articulate stammering o f the mystic. The reality o f the One
corresponds to the affirmation o f the essential autonomy o f
the spiritual life when this life is comprehended in itself, not
through isolated fragments, but in its concrete fulness. That
is why Hegel was right in saying that “ the thought o f the
Plotinian philosophy is an intellectualism or a lofty ideal-
>»
ism.
The unique character o f this idealism, which makes it
something new and fruitful, is that it attends, not like Hel­
lenic idealism to objects, but to the relations o f subject and
object. Indeed, this idealism does not consist, as in Plato and
Aristotle, in substituting thinkable objects for objects o f sense
and in forming out o f the thinkable objects forms or Ideas,
the essence o f the objects o f sense. These thinkable objects
remain indeed objects, and the subject properly so called can
only exist as a mirror which reflects them or as a receptacle
which contains them. Did not the Stoics, too, say that reason
is nothing but a conglomerate o f ideas?
Quite to the contrary, what Plotinus places under the cate­
gory o f things and out o f which he forms true reality are ac-
2 1 have shown the profound significance o f this theory o f freedom
throughout the history o f philosophy in a study entitled “ Liberté et déter­
minisme,” Revue internationale de philosophie (Brussels), August, 1948, pp.
1-13 .

191
THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

tive subjects, spiritual activities. One recent interpreter o f

Plotinian thought, Max Wundt, states that Plotinus pos­
sesses no doctrine. In one sense that is very true. Plotinus is a
spiritual guide rather than a doctrinarian, and what we usu­
ally consider the essential element o f his doctrine—the trinity
o f the hypostases, the One, Intelligence, and Soul—must have
appeared merely as a commonplace, or at least a basic datum,
in the eyes o f his first readers, long since accustomed to
speculations o f this sort. What was new was not the letter
but the spirit. It was excluding from eternal realities those
fixed objects, the Ideas— or at the least making them, to the
astonishment o f Porphyry (when a newcomer to the school),
modes or states o f Intelligence and no longer things. It was
ushering into the intelligible world the individual subject it­
self with the concrete richness and infinity o f all its deter­
minations. Finally, it was considering the hypostases them­
selves as spiritual attitudes and not as things. For nothing like
things exists in true reality. There exist only subjects which
contemplate and in which contemplation exists in a varying
degree o f concentration and purity, as is the case with the
monads o f Leibniz. Pure subject—the One; the subject
ideally separated from its object—Intelligence; finally, the
subject which scatters and disperses itself in a world o f ob­
jects—the Soul; these are everywhere active subjects, varying
in degrees o f activity.
But in such a representation o f things the subjects which
we are ourselves no longer feel isolated in the face o f a world
o f objects. Between a subject and an object there is no bond
except that o f knowledge. Between subjects there exist the
more intimate bonds o f internal sympathy. There is never
any absolute difference, any rigorous exteriority. Their dif­
ference is indicated only by their degree o f spiritual concen­

192
 Conclusion

tration. Each subject may then, through an inward transfor­

mation, become other than what it was. “ The self knows not
its own limits.” Through the inner life it surmounts those
which it thought to be its limits. Each new item o f knowl­
edge is thus not only integrated with others, it transforms
within its depths the Soul itself.
From this conception o f the spiritual life two paradoxical
and closely related consequences follow. In the first place,
consciousness is not at all the measure o f our spiritual being.
In the second place, our destiny does not consist in action, as
the Stoics believed. Consciousness illuminates only a minute
fragment o f the subject which we really are, since “ we are all
real beings, even when we are not aware o f it.” Conscious­
ness arises from an opposition between our apparent reality
and our true reality. Action, in the same way, presupposes re­
lations o f externality, which are not real relations and which
turn the soul away from its own nature. Not that the ideal­
ism o f Plotinus makes for a school o f fakirs. To say that ex­
ternal action does not reveal our real power is not to advo­
cate inactivity because o f some apprehension and fear. It is
merely to deem it at a lower level than thought, as being
only “ the shadow o f contemplation,” and to hold that we
must not seek in action a true and durable amelioration o f
our being.
But such an idealism (and therein consisted its chief sig­
nificance in the eyes o f his contemporaries) enables one to
state and solve the problem o f destiny within the very realm
o f philosophy. The vision o f the universe furnished by phi­
losophy was for the first time in complete harmony with the
vision o f the universe required for the solution o f the prob­
lem o f destiny. Philosophical rationalism and the religious
spirit supported and completed each other. Whereas in Plato

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THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLOTINUS

the myth o f the destiny o f the soul appears as a tale added on

to the rational explanation o f the universe; whereas in Chris­
tianity religious destiny, along with creation, the fall, and
redemption, brought into action spontaneous and unfore­
seeable forces which manifested themselves successively in
history but without being bound to the nature o f things; in
Plotinus, on the contrary, the destiny o f souls lies only in the
rational knowledge o f the order o f things, knowledge which
in attaining completion in its source, in the One, brings the
Soul to that complete deliverance which is the “ end o f the
journey.” To be sure, the conception that the knowledge o f
necessity delivers man had already been a favorite idea o f the
Stoics, and here Plotinus owes a great deal to their sugges­
tions. But in the Stoics the conception o f necessity is encum­
bered with all sorts o f physical and religious representations
which alter its nature. The material character o f their fiery
God on the one hand and, on the other, the intentions and
the finality which they ascribed to his will are contrary to the
rational purity o f necessity. In Plotinus, on the contrary, the
sole necessity is that o f a spreading spiritual life, and it is re­
duced entirely to the conditions o f the knowledge o f self.
It is because the subject o f destiny, namely, the Soul, is
fundamentally and in its depths identical with the principle o f
the universe that this solution is possible. The principle o f the
universe is this subject in the state o f purity. The knowledge
we possess o f the divine is identical with the knowledge o f
ourselves. Our destiny lies entirely in our inner life. Plotinus
still employs symbolically the fantastic topography o f the
universe made current by the religions o f salvation. But it is
easy to see that there is no longer any spatial difference, for
Plotinus, in the diverse regions through which the soul passes
in its ascent. The difference between “ here” and “ there,”

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 Conclusion

between upper and lower, no longer signifies anything but

the difference between the dispersion o f sensuousness and
inner concentration.
The destiny o f the Soul does not consist then o f different
historical episodes which unfold themselves on different
stages. The religious thought o f Plotinus was as much op­
posed to the ordinary representations o f the universe in the
religions o f salvation as his philosophic thought was opposed
to Greek rationalism.
One and the same idea governs this double opposition. It
is that o f the spiritual life. Most certainly, Plotinus was not
the inventor o f spirituality, and throughout many genera­
tions the writings o f pagans as well as those o f Christians had
advocated indifference to objects o f sense and the withdrawal
o f the soul into its inner part. Indeed Plotinus was not the
first to give both an ethical and cosmic meaning to the spirit­
ual life by representing mind as the force which animates the
worlds as well as that which restores the soul to its blessed
state. But he conceived o f the relations between the soul and
God in a very special way. In the first place, it is an immedi­
ate relation without the intermediary o f a savior or o f a
physical community. All by himself, the philosopher is in
contact with the One through the power o f his own medita­
tion. In the second place, this relation takes place without the
summons o f God. The One has no will to save souls. Its ben­
efits are fulfilled through the sole necessity o f its nature, just
as light shines. In the third place, if this is the case, it is be­
cause the One is everywhere and because there is a funda­
mental identity between the self and the One. The soul dis­
covers the One within its inmost depths as the pure subject
which makes the Soul a substance, an autonomous and inde­
pendent being.

m
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

N ow these three characteristics correspond point for point

with the religious thought o f the Indians as contained in the
Upanishads.
Plotinus seized upon the affinity which existed between
this religious conception and Greek rationalism. His idealism
was born out o f this rapprochement. Greek philosophy al­
ways sought to express the rational necessity according to
which the forms o f reality proceed from one another. N ow
that is where the problem o f Plotinus lies too. But the forms
o f the real cannot be considered inert realities existing inde­
pendently o f the spiritual activities which posed them. I f they
are really capable o f being the objects o f a rational inference,
their substance must consist in these spiritual activities them­
selves. The unique spiritual reality discovered by the mystic,
the activity which is the basis o f all reality without being any
determined reality, becomes interdependent with rational­
ism conceived in this sense.

This new type o f idealism created by Plo­

tinus forms an independent and permanent force in the his­
tory o f philosophy. I need not here even begin to tell its his­
tory. It would be appropriate to show how, in our Western
civilization, its spirit has been manifested in the form o f a
philosophy which is both religious and rationalistic but still
profoundly opposed to Christian thought.
Its essential trait, which has persisted through the cen­
turies, is the affirmation o f the complete autonomy o f the life
o f the spirit. Not only is it not like a lucky accident occurring
in a world already completely formed, not only is it the very
substance o f the world, but it is in no wise a prisoner o f the
forms in which it is realized in concrete reality. The One,
which is the very ground o f this life, is absolute freedom.

196
 Conclusion

Freedom, in us, is not realized, consequently, as a spontaneity

arising from nothing within an existing world, like an “ em­
pire within an empire,” but through an increasingly intimate
communion with the life o f the universe.
The life o f the spirit, which is at the same time personal
life, is rooted consequently in infinity. The One is the “ po­
tentiality o f all things.” It is not possible to show more clearly
that what Plotinus sought in the source was a force capable o f
producing and maintaining the spiritual life indefinitely. It
was the deep conviction o f Plotinus that this force, at bot­
tom, is ourselves and that our true destiny consists in attach­
ing ourselves to it. The words which he uttered on his death­
bed, according to the account o f Porphyry, sum up and con­
dense his whole religious and philosophical ideal: “ I am
striving to give back the divine which is in me to the divine
in the universe.” 3
3 Life o f Plotinus 2.

197
 AU TH O R’S

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

NOTE

I. E D I T I O N S
Subsequent to m y edition o f the text and translation o f the En-
neads, which appeared between 19 24 and 1938 in the ‘‘Collection
Guillaume Budé” (7 vols.; Paris: Société d ’ Edition “ Les Belles
Lettres,” 19 2 4 -38 ), the text was again studied very carefully by
tw o distinguished philologists, Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolph
Schwyzer. In the first volume o f his Études plotiniennes (Vol. I:
Les états du texte de Plotin [Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 19 38]),
Henry studied the direct and indirect tradition o f the text among
the Church Fathers, the philosophers, and the scholars at the end
o f antiquity and the Byzantine period. In a second volume (Vol.
II: Les manuscrits des Ennéades [1948]), he gives a meticulous de­
scription o f the manuscripts, the dates o f which m ay be deter­
mined with some certainty from the paper used. The issue o f
these important preliminary studies has resulted in the new edi­
tion o f the Plotinus text, o f which the first two volumes have ap­
peared: Plotini opera, Vol. I: Porphyrii “ Vita Plotini” ; Enneades i-iii,
ed. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolph Schwyzer (“ Series philo-
sophica,” V o l. X X X I II ) (Paris and Brussels: Museum Lessianum,
1 9 5 !) ; V o l. II: Enneades iv-vyed. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolph
Schwyzer (“ Series philosophica,” Vol. X X X I V ) (Paris and Brus­
sels: Museum Lessianum, 19 58). Three other foreign translations
o f the Enneads should be mentioned: Plotin, a German translation
by Richard Harder (5 vols.; Leipzig, 19 3 0 -3 7 ) ; Plotino: Enneadi,

198
 Author s Bibliographical Note

an Italian translation by Vincenzo Cilento (4 vols.; Bari: Gius.

Laterza & Figli, 19 4 7-4 9 ) (this edition includes a large bibliog­
raphy compiled by B . Mariëns); and Le Enneadi H ii e Porfirio ,
Vita di Plotino, ed. G . Faggin (3 vols.; Milan: Istituto Editoriale
Italiano, 19 4 7-4 8 ).

II. G E N E R A L WOR K S
M an sion , A . “ Travaux sur l’œuvre et la philosophie de Plotin,”
Revue néoscolastique de la philosophie, M ay, 1939 .
Pe uch, H e n r i Charles. “ Position spirituelle et signification de
Plotin,” Bulletin de f Association Guillaume Budé , N o . 6 1 (Octo­
ber, 19 38), pp. 13 -4 6 , in which can be found an excellent ex­
position o f Plotinus* thought along with numerous references
to studies on Plotinus.
S c h w y z e r , H a n s - R u d o l p h . Zwiefache Sicht in der Philosophie
PlotinSyVolA. Museum Helveticum, 1944. The opposition is
herein brought out between the hierarchy o f the hypostases,
which distinguishes them from one another, and their continu­
ity, which abolishes these distinctions (pp. 87-99).

III. D E T A I L E D STUDI ES
B e nz , E. D ie Entwicklung des abendländischen Willensbegriffs von
Plotin bis Augustin . Stuttgart, 19 3 1.
C u m on t, F. L e culte égyptien et le mysticisme de Plotin. Paris:
Leroux, 19 2 1 -2 2 .
D a h l, A . Augustin und Plotin . Lund: Univ.-Bokhandel, 1945 .
D o d d s , E . R . “ The Parmenides o f Plato and the Origin o f the
Neo-Platonic ‘ One,’ ” Classical Quarterly, X X I I (July, 1928),
12 9 -4 2 .
G r abar, M . “ Plotin et Torigin de l’esthétique m édiévale,”
Cahiers archéologiques (Paris), 1948.
H a r d e r , R . “ Eine neue Schrift Plotins,” Hermes, N o . i (1936),
pp. 1 - 1 0 . (This relates to Enneads v. 5. 4.)
H e n r y , P. “ Le problème de la liberté chez Plotin,” Revue néosco­
lastique, February, M ay, August, 19 3 1.

199
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

H e n r y , P. “ Bulletin critique des études plotiniennes,” Nouvelle

revue théologique, September-December, 1932.
---------- . “ U n Hapax legomenon de Plotin,” Mélanges Bidez.
Brussels, 1934.
---------- . Vers la reconstruction de renseignement oral de Plotin. Brus­
sels: M . Hayez, 19 37.
Keyser, E u g é n i e de. La signification de fart dans les Enneades de
Plotin. (“ Recueil de travaux d’historie et de philologie,” 4.
sér., fase. 7.) Louvain: Université de Louvain, 1955.
Kristeller, P a u l Os ka r. Der Begriff der Seele in der Ethik des
Plotin. Tübingen: M ohr, 1929.
L a c o m b e , O. “ N ote sur Plotin et la pensée indienne,” Annuaire de
rÉcole Practique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences Re­
ligieuses, 19 5 0 -5 1.
M a r r u c c h i , P. “ Studi plotiniani I: Metafisica délia libertà (Enn.
V I, 8, 1) ,” Atene e Roma, Ju ly, 19 33.
M e r l a n , P. “ Ein Simplikios-Zitat bei Pseudo-Alexandros und
ein Plotinos-Zitat (Enn. II, 1) bei Simplikios,” Rheinisches
Museum fü r Philologie, L X X X I V (19 35), 154-6 0.
O p p e r m a n , H. Plotins Leben. Heidelberg, 1929.
Przyluski, J . Manx et Plotin. Académie Royale de Belgique,
Classe des Lettres, 1934.
---------- . “ Les trois hypostases dans l’Inde et à Alexandrie,” A n -
nuaire de l'Institut de Philologie Orientale (Brussels), Vol. IV
( 1936).
Ru tt en , Christian. Les catégories du monde sensible dans les Enné-
ades de Plotin. (“ Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et
Lettres de l'Université de Liège,” Fase. C L X .) Paris: Société
d’ Edition “ Les Belles Lettres,” 19 6 1.
Schä ch er , P. E . “ Z u r Psychologie Plotins,” Opuscula philologica
(Linz), 19 27. (This relates to the nature and limits o f Plotinus’
mysticism.)
S c h w y z e r , H. R. “ Zu r Plotins Interpretation von Platons T i-
maeus 3 5A , ” Rheinisches Museum fü r Philologie , L X X X I V
(19 35), 360-68.

200
 Author s Bibliographical Note

— ------ . “ Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation von Plotin, Enn. IV ,

7, 6,” Philologus, LXXXIX (1914), 459-61.

T r o u i l l a r d , Je a n . La procession plotinienne. Paris: Presses Uni­

versitaires de France, 1955.
---------- . La purification plotinienne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1955.
V o lk m a n n -S ch lu ck , K a r l H einz. Plotin als Interpret der Ontolo­
gie Platos. 2d ed. (Philosophische Abhandlung, Bd. 10.) Frank­
furt-am-Main: V. Klostermann, 1957.
W i t t , R. E. “ Plotinus and Posidonius, Classical Quarterly,
X X I V (July, 1930), 19 8-20 7.
---------- . “ The Plotinian Logos and Its Stoic Basis,” ibid., X X V
(April, 1931), 103-11.
IV. T HE I N F L U E N C E OF P L O T I N U S
C o u r c e lle , P. Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cas-
siodore. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1943.
G u itto n , J . Le temps et F éternité chez Plotin et saint Augustin.
Paris: Boivin, 1933.
H en ry , P. “ Plotin et l'Occident,” Spicilegium lovaniense (Lou­
vain j, Vol. XV (1934).
M a r r o u , H . I. Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique. Paris:
E. de Boccard, 1937.
O f particular interest, one learns from these four works how
Plotinus was read by pagan and Christian authors from the time
o f antiquity onward.

V. t h e E n n e ads in English
A rm stro n g , A. H . Plotinus. London: Allen & U nw in, 1953*
(Selections in translation with Introduction and brief notes.)
D od d s, E . R. Select Passages Illustrating Neo-Platonism . London.
S.P .C .K ., 19 2 3 .

201
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

G uthrie, K e n n e t h S y l v a n . Plotinos: Complete Works. 4 vols.

Alpine, N.J.: Platonist Press, 1918.
K a t z , J o s e p h . The Philosophy of Plotinus: Representative Books
from the Enneads. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1950.
M a c K e n n a , St e p h e n . Plotinus: The Enneads. 2d ecL, revised by
B. S. P a g e . New York: Pantheon Books, 1957.
T a y l o r , T h o m a s . Selected Portions of the Enneads. London, 1787-
1834. (Re-edited in Bohn’s Philosophical Library, with Intro­
duction and Bibliography by G. R. S. M e a d . London, 1895.)
T u r n b u l l , G r a c e H. The Essence of Plotinus: Extractsfrom the Six
Enneads and Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1948.

VI. B O O K S I N E N G L I S H ON P L O T I N U S
A rmstrong , A. H. Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the
Philosophy of Plotinus. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1940.
F u l l e r , B. A. G. The Problem of Evil in Plotinus. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1912.
In g e , W . R. The Philosophy of Plotinus. 2 vols. 3d ed. London:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1929.
K a t z , J o s e p h . Plotinus9 Search for the Good. New York: King’s
Crown Press, 1950.
P i s t o r i u s , P h i l i p p u s V illiers . Plotinus and Neoplatonism. Cam­
bridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1952.
W h i t t a k e r , T h o m a s . The Neo-Platonists. 2d ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1928.

202
 INDEX

Achilles, 67 Brahmans, 119

Adrastus, 23 Brahmins, 120
Ahriman, 180 Brochard, Victor, 119
Albinus, 112 Brucker, 19
Alexander, 11, 23, 119, 121
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 14 Caius, 23
Alexandria, 121 Calanus, 119
Amelius, 22, 24, 25 Cartesianism, 42
Ammonius Saccas, 114, 121 Celsus, 18
Anaxagoras, 91 Chapot, Victor, 12 n.
Animism, 57-62 Christ, 114, 146
Apollonius, 120 Christian faith, 118
Apuleius, 15, 16, 34, 38-40, ii2 Chrysostom, St.John, 12
Arabic philosophy, 89 Clement, 16
Arabs, 84 Cochez, 40
Aristocles, 130 n. Contemplation, 3, 6, 11, 59-63, 66-67,
Aristotle, 4, 15, 27, 63, 77, 84, 86, 89, 98, 166, 184, 189-92
91, 95, 98/102, 109, 130, 134, 174, Cronius, 23
177-78, 191 Cumont, Franz, 34, 37 n., 38 n., 63,
Aristoxenos, 130 64 n., 114
Arnou, René, 84, 138 n., 149, 159 n. Cynics, 14
Aselepius, 12 n.
Aspasius, 23 Damascius, 17, 158
Demiurge, 167, 172 fi.
Astral religion, 16
Athena, 67 Descartes, 100, 103, 118, 164, 183
Deussen, Paul, 123, 125-28
Atman, 124-29
Dionysius, 71
Atticus, 23
Diotima, 86
Augustine, St., 103
Duhem, P., 142
Augustus, 119
Aurelian, 16, 63
Ecstasy, 147-63, 184, 190
Aurelius, Marcus; see Marcus Aurelius
Epictetus, 2, 97 n., 107
Bacon, Roger, 8 Epicureanism, 14
Bardesanes, 120 Erigena, Scotus, 157 n.
Bouillet, M. P., 28, 83 Eros, Platonic, 148-63
Brahman, 124-29 Eucken, 103, 107

203
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS

Eudoxus, 44 Locke, John, 175

Evil, 171, 179-81 Lysimachus, 22

Ferrero, Guglielmo, 13 McCormack, Thomas J., 37 n.

Fichte, 154 n. Mahabharata, 8, 126
Fourth Gospel, 146 Manichaeism, 180
Freedom, in Greek philosophy, 188-97 Marcus Aurelius, 39
Matter, defined, 179-80
Gallienus, Emperor, 22 Megasthenes, 119
Garmanes, 119 Metaphysical reality, 51
Gnostics, 17, 24, 44, 64, 85, 121, 167, Mithra, 38, 113, 114
170 Monadism, 94
Goblot, 102 More, Paul Elmer, 36 n.
Gordian, Emperor, 114 Müller, H. F., 19 n., 117
Grabar, Maurice, 62 n. Musonius, 2
Guignebert, Charles, 41 Mystery religions, 38
Gymnosophists, 119 Mystical experience, 147-63
Mysticism, 112
Hamlet, 7
Hegel, 103, 190, 191
Neoplatonism, 116, 122, 136, 141, 158,
Heinemann, Fritz, 84, 99 n.
174
Heliogabalus, 119
Neoplatonists, 17
Hellenism, 11, 44 Numenius, 15, 23, 37, 64
Hermetic writings, 2
Hermetics, 4 Oldenberg, Hermann, 123, 126-28
Hesiod, 97 Oracles, Chaldean, 122
Hieroglyphs, 121 Origen, 16, 17, 18 n.
Hindus, 120 Orphic-Pythagorean tradition, 55
Homo, Léon, 16 n.
Panpsychism, 58
Iamblichus, 113 Parmenides, 48
India, 12, 118, 119, 120-23 Paul, St., 84, 85
Indians, 114» 122, 124, 130 Persians, 114
Inge, W . R., 41. 54, 55 n., 84, 152, Philo, 2, 4, 85, 113, 135, 147, 150, 166
157 n.
Philostratus, 120
Isiac mysteries, 40
Plato, 4, 14, 15, 24, 26, 27, 35-37» 42,
Isis, 121
48, 56, 64, 69, 86, 87, 90, 98-101,
James, William, 147 102, 109, 116, 134, 141, 191
Jesus, 146 Pliny, 8
Julian the Apostate, 113 Plotinian physics, 175^76
Polytheism, 14
Katz, Joseph, 153 n. Porphyry, 21, 23-26, 120, 192
Lacombe, Olivier, 131 n. Prayer, 113
Lassen, Christian, 122 Proclus, 21, 37 n., 122
Leibniz, 5, 26, $9, 94, 169, 192 Psychology, Plotinian, 54-55, 73-82

204
 Index

Pyrrho, 119 Stoic theory of sympathy, 93-95

Pythagorcanism, 13 5-36 Stoicism, 5, 14, 63, 115
Stoics, 3, 44, 55, 57, 98, 109, 134-35
Reitzenstein, Richard, 34, 35, 38 Strabo, 119
Reynaud, 129
Richter, Arthur, 19 n. Tenneman, 19
Ritter, 122 Thaumasius, 23
Rome, 21, 120, 121 Therapeutae, 2
Savior, 112 Upanishads, 117, 123-29, 132, 197
Schelling, 123
Scholastic philosophy, 89 Vacherot, 19
Scott,Walter, 12 n., 112 n. Veda, 125
Seminal reason, 58, 173 Vitalism, 58
Severus, 23
Sextus Empiricus, 14 Whitehead, Hon. Lady, 13 n.
Socrates, 97, 130, 183 Wundt, Max, 192
Sol Invictus, 63-64
Solar theology, 114 #• Zeller, Edward, 32
Spinoza, 42, 47, 123, 153 Zethus, 25 n.
Spinozism, 41 Zeus, 5, 60