But, to begin with, it is surely unsound to deny that good of life to animals only because they do not appear to man to be of great account. And as for plants, we need not necessarily allow to them what we accord to the other FORMS OF LIFE, since they have no feeling. It is true people might be found to declare prosperity possible to the very plants: they have life, and life may bring good or evil; the plants may thrive or wither, bear or be barren. Enneads I,4,1
It has been said more than once that the perfect life and the true life, the essential life, is in the Intellectual Nature beyond this sphere, and that all other FORMS OF LIFE are incomplete, are phantoms of life, imperfect, not pure, not more truly life than they are its contrary: here let it be said succinctly that since all living things proceed from the one<one principle but possess life in different degrees, this principle must be the first life and the most complete. Enneads I,4,3
All things must be enchained; and the sympathy and correspondence obtaining in any one closely knit organism must exist, first, and most intensely, in the All. There must be one principle constituting this unit of many FORMS OF LIFE and enclosing the several members within the unity, while at the same time, precisely as in each thing of detail the parts too have each a definite function, so in the All each several member must have its own task – but more markedly so since in this case the parts are not merely members but themselves Alls, members of the loftier Kind. Enneads II,3,7
The constitution of the All is very different from that of the single, separate FORMS OF LIFE: there, the established rule commanding to permanence is sovereign; here things are like deserters kept to their own place and duty by a double bond; there is no outlet from the All, and therefore no need of restraining or of driving errants back to bounds: all remains where from the beginning the Soul’s nature appointed. Enneads II,9,7
No: this thing that has come into Being is the Kosmos complete: do but survey it, and surely this is the pleading you will hear: I am made by a God: from that God I came perfect above all FORMS OF LIFE, adequate to my function, self-sufficing, lacking nothing: for I am the container of all, that is, of every plant and every animal, of all the Kinds of created things, and many Gods and nations of Spirit-Beings and lofty souls and men happy in their goodness. Enneads III,2,3
Some Existents (Absolute Unity and Intellectual-Principle) remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed-Idea, come into being; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty – that in any of its expression-forms – Nature and all FORMS OF LIFE down to the vegetable order. Even as it is present in human beings the Soul carries its Expression-form (Hypostasis) with it, but is not the dominant since it is not the whole man (humanity including the Intellectual Principal, as well): in the vegetable order it is the highest since there is nothing to rival it; but at this phase it is no longer reproductive, or, at least, what it produces is of quite another order; here life ceases; all later production is lifeless. Enneads III,4,1
If we can trace neither to material agencies (blind elements) nor to any deliberate intention the influences from without which reach to us and to the other FORMS OF LIFE and to the terrestrial in general, what cause satisfactory to reason remains? The secret is: firstly, that this All is one universally comprehensive living being, encircling all the living beings within it, and having a soul, one soul, which extends to all its members in the degree of participant membership held by each; secondly, that every separate thing is an integral part of this All by belonging to the total material fabric – unrestrictedly a part by bodily membership, while, in so far as it has also some participation in the All. Soul, it possesses in that degree spiritual membership as well, perfect where participation is in the All-Soul alone, partial where there is also a union with a lower soul. Enneads IV,4,32
In the Intellectual-Principle a distinction is to be made: there is the Intellectual-Principle itself, which like some huge living organism contains potentially all the other forms; and there are the forms thus potentially included now realized as individuals. We may think of it as a city which itself has soul and life, and includes, also, other FORMS OF LIFE; the living city is the more perfect and powerful, but those lesser forms, in spite of all, share in the one same living quality: or, another illustration, from fire, the universal, proceed both the great fire and the minor fires; yet all have the one common essence, that of fire the universal, or, more exactly, participate in that from which the essence of the universal fire proceeds. Enneads IV,8,3
Now are we to hold similarly that your soul and mine and all are one, and that the same thing is true of the universe, the soul in all the several FORMS OF LIFE being one soul, not parcelled out in separate items, but an omnipresent identity? If the soul in me is a unity, why need that in the universe be otherwise seeing that there is no longer any question of bulk or body? And if that, too, is one soul and yours, and mine, belongs to it, then yours and mine must also be one: and if, again, the soul of the universe and mine depend from one soul, once more all must be one. Enneads IV,9,1
But this procedure is scarcely permissible. Every being is a distinct whole. The dim manifestation is in no sense a common ground, just as there is no common ground in the vegetal, the sensory and the intellectual FORMS OF LIFE. Enneads VI,3,7
Admitted, then – it will be said – for the nobler FORMS OF LIFE; but how can the divine contain the mean, the unreasoning? The mean is the unreasoning, since value depends upon reason and the worth of the intellective implies worthlessness where intellection is lacking. Yet how can there be question of the unreasoning or unintellective when all particulars exist in the divine and come forth from it? In taking up the refutation of these objections, we must insist upon the consideration that neither man nor animals here can be thought of as identical with the counterparts in the higher realm; those ideal forms must be taken in a larger way. And again the reasoning thing is not of that realm: here the reasoning, There the pre-reasoning. Enneads VI,7,9
But (it will be objected) if this were a matter of mere thinking we might well admit that the intellectual concept, remaining concept, should take in the unintellectual, but where concept is identical with thing how can the one be an Intellection and the other without intelligence? Would not this be Intellect making itself unintelligent? No: the thing is not unintelligent; it is Intelligence in a particular mode, corresponding to a particular aspect of Life; and just as life in whatever form it may appear remains always life, so Intellect is not annulled by appearing in a certain mode. Intellectual-Principle adapted to some particular living being does not cease to be the Intellectual-Principle of all, including man: take it where you will, every manifestation is the whole, though in some special mode; the particular is produced but the possibility is of all. In the particular we see the Intellectual-Principle in realization; the realized is its latest phase; in one case the last aspect is “horse”; at “horse” ended the progressive outgoing towards the lesser FORMS OF LIFE, as in another case it will end at something lower still. The unfolding of the powers of this Principle is always attended by some abandonment in regard to the highest; the outgoing is by loss, and by this loss the powers become one thing or another according to the deficiency of the life-form produced by the failing principle; it is then that they find the means of adding various requisites; the safeguards of the life becoming inadequate there appear nail, talon, fang, horn. Thus the Intellectual-Principle by its very descent is directed towards the perfect sufficiency of the natural constitution, finding there within itself the remedy of the failure. Enneads VI,7,9
The content of that living thing must surely be alive – as in this sphere – and all that lives must of necessity be There. The nature of the major parts determines that of the living forms they comprise; by the being and content of the heaven There are determined all the heavenly FORMS OF LIFE; if those lesser forms were not There, that heaven itself would not be. Enneads VI,7,12
To ask how those FORMS OF LIFE come to be There is simply asking how that heaven came to be; it is asking whence comes life, whence the All-Life, whence the All-Soul, whence collective Intellect: and the answer is that There no indigence or impotence can exist but all must be teeming, seething, with life. All flows, so to speak, from one fount not to be thought of as one breath or warmth but rather as one quality englobing and safeguarding all qualities – sweetness with fragrance, wine – quality and the savours of everything that may be tasted, all colours seen, everything known to touch, all that ear may hear, all melodies, every rhythm. Enneads VI,7,12