Let us take first the Couplement of body and Soul. How could suffering, for example, be seated in this Couplement? It may be suggested that some unwelcome STATE OF THE BODY produces a distress which reaches to a Sensitive-Faculty which in turn merges into Soul. But this account still leaves the origin of the sensation unexplained. Enneads I,1,
Is it any explanation to say that desire is vested in a Faculty-of-desire and anger in the Irascible-Faculty and, collectively, that all tendency is seated in the Appetitive-Faculty? Such a statement of the facts does not help towards making the affections common to the Couplement; they might still be seated either in the Soul alone or in the body alone. On the one hand if the appetite is to be stirred, as in the carnal passion, there must be a heating of the blood and the bile, a well-defined STATE OF THE BODY; on the other hand, the impulse towards The Good cannot be a joint affection, but, like certain others too, it would belong necessarily to the Soul alone. Enneads I,1,
We may be told that the changing STATE OF THE BODY is sufficient explanation of the changing desires in the faculty; but that would require the demonstration that the changing condition of a given entity could effect a change of desire in another, in one which cannot itself gain by the gratification; for it is not the desiring faculty that profits by food, liquid, warmth, movement, or by any relief from overplenty or any filling of a void; all such services touch the body only. Enneads IV,4,