Plotino – Tratado 28,20 (IV, 4, 20) — O desejo (1)

20. Hay que instituir, pues, como principio de los deseos del cuerpo, esa parte común a que nos referíamos y la naturaleza misma del cuerpo que concuerda con ella. Porque no puede señalarse como principio de los deseos y de las inclinaciones a ningún cuerpo o alma, tomados por separado. No es el alma la que busca los sabores dulces o amargos, sino el cuerpo, pero entiéndase bien, el cuerpo que no quiere ser sólo un cuerpo. Este cuerpo ha debido procurarse muchos más movimientos que el alma, forzado como está a volverse a muchas partes para las nuevas adquisiciones de que tiene necesidad. Por ello, en unas ocasiones ha de contar con lo amargo, en otras con lo dulce. Y necesita de la humedad y del calor, todo lo cual en nada le aprovecharía si se encontrase solo.

Como decíamos anteriormente, del dolor proviene el conocimiento. El alma, que quiere apartar el cuerpo del objeto que produce este dolor, lo aparta en efecto y lo hace huir, en tanto el órgano, que ha sido afectado el primero, aleccionado por esto, trata de escapar y de sustraerse a aquél. Así, aquí nos instruyen la sensación y la parte del alma vecina al cuerpo, esa parte que llamamos naturaleza y que da al cuerpo una huella de sí misma. En la naturaleza se concluye, pues, aquel deseo preciso que había tenido comienzo en el cuerpo; luego, la sensación presenta la imagen del objeto, y el alma, por su parte, o da paso al deseo, como es su deber, o le hace resistencia y se muestra firme, no prestando atención al cuerpo, en el que comenzó el deseo, ni a la naturaleza consecuente con el deseo. Pero, ¿por qué estos dos deseos, y no el deseo de un cuerpo, y de un determinado cuerpo? Hemos de admitir que si la naturaleza es una cosa, el cuerpo vivo es realmente otra. Pero el cuerpo ha salido de la naturaleza, porque la naturaleza misma de un cuerpo es anterior al nacimiento de este cuerpo y es ella la que lo produce, lo modela y lo conforma. De ahí que el deseo no deba comenzar en la naturaleza, sino en el cuerpo vivo, cuando éste experimenta algo y sufre; esto es, “cuando desea estados contrarios a los que ahora sufre, el placer en lugar del sufrimiento y la satisfacción en lugar de la necesidad”. Pero la naturaleza, actuando como una madre, adivina los deseos del cuerpo vencido por el dolor, y trata de enderezarlo y de elevarlo hacia ella, buscando todo aquello que puede curarle y ayudándole y uniéndose a sus deseos, que terminan por pasar del cuerpo a ella. De modo que podrá decirse que el cuerpo desea por sí mismo, que en la naturaleza el deseo proviene del cuerpo y existe por él, y que la facultad que da paso al deseo es algo muy diferente a él.

XX. Il résulte de ce qui précède que c’est dans la partie commune et dans le corps vivant qu’il faut placer l’origine des appétits (ἐπιθυμίαι). Désirer une chose et la rechercher n’appartient pas à un corps qui serait dans un état quelconque [qui ne serait pas vivant]. D’un autre côté, ce n’est pas l’âme qui recherche les saveurs douces ou amères, c’est le corps. Or le corps, par cela même qu’il n’est pas simplement un corps [qu’il est un corps vivant], se meut beaucoup plus que l’âme et est obligé de rechercher mille objets pour satisfaire ses besoins : il lui faut tantôt des saveurs douces, tantôt des saveurs amères, tantôt de l’humidité, tantôt de la chaleur, toutes choses dont il ne se soucierait pas s’il était seul. Comme la souffrance est accompagnée de connaissance, l’âme, pour éviter l’objet qui cause la souffrance, fait un effort qui constitue l’aversion (φυγή) parce qu’elle perçoit la passion éprouvée par l”organe, qui se contracte pour échapper à l’objet nuisible. Ainsi, tout ce qui se passe dans le corps est connu par la sensation et par cette partie de l’âme que nous appelons nature et qui donne au corps un vestige de l’âme. D’un côté, à la nature se lie l’appétit, qui a son origine dans le corps et qui, dans la nature, atteint son plus haut degré (57). D’un autre côté, la sensation engendre l’imagination, à la suite de laquelle l’âme satisfait le besoin, ou bien s’abstient et se retient, sans écouter le corps qui a donné naissance à l’appétit ni la faculté qui l’a ressenti ensuite (58).

Pourquoi reconnaître ainsi deux espèces d’appétit au lieu d’admettre qu’il n’existe d’appétit que dans le corps vivant? C’est qu’autre chose est la nature, autre chose le corps auquel elle donne la vie. La nature est antérieure au corps puisque c’est elle qui l’organise en le façonnant et en lui donnant sa forme; il en résulte que l’origine de l’appétit n’est pas dans la nature, mais dans les passions du corps vivant : s’il souffre, il aspire à posséder les choses contraires à celles qui le font souffrir, à faire succéder le plaisir à la douleur, la satiété au besoin. La nature, comme une mère, devine les désirs du corps qui a pâti, tâche de le diriger et de le ramener à elle ; or, en cherchant à le satisfaire, elle partage par là même ses appétits, elle se propose d’atteindre les mêmes fins. On peut donc dire que le corps a par lui-même des appétits, des penchants ; que la nature n’en a qu’à la suite du corps et à cause de lui ; que l’âme enfin est une puissance indépendante qui accorde ou refuse à l’organisme ce qu’il désire.

THE APPETITES ARE LOCATED NEITHER IN BODY NOR SOUL, BUT IN THEIR COMBINATION.

20. Consequently, it may be said that the origin of the desires should be located in the common (combination) and in the physical nature. To desire and seek something would not be characteristic of a body in any state whatever (which would not be alive). On the other hand, it is not the soul which seeks after sweet or bitter flavors, but the body. Now the body, by the very fact that it is not simply a body (that it is a living body), moves much more than the soul, and is obliged to seek out a thousand objects to satisfy its needs: at times it needs sweet flavors, at others, bitter flavors; again humidity, and later, heat; all of them being things about which it would not care, were it alone. As the suffering is accompanied by knowledge, the soul, to avoid the object which causes the suffering, makes an effort which constitutes flight, because she perceives the passion experienced by the organ, that contracts to escape the harmful object. Thus everything that occurs in the body is known by sensation, and by that part of the soul called nature, and which gives the body a trace of the soul. On one hand, desire, which has its origin in the body, and reaches its highest degree in nature, attaches itself thereto. On the other hand, sensation begets imagination, as a consequence of which the soul satisfies her need, or abstains, and restrains herself; without listening to the body which gave birth to desire, nor the faculty which later felt its reaction.

TWO KINDS OF DESIRES: OF THE BODY; AND OF THE COMBINATION, OR NATURE.

Why therefore should we recognize two kinds of desires, instead of acknowledging only one kind in the living body? Because nature differs from the body to which it gives life. Nature is anterior to the body because it is nature that organizes the body by moulding it, and shaping it; consequently, the origin of desire is not in nature, but in the passions of the living body. If the latter suffer, it aspires to possess things contrary to those that make it suffer, to make pleasure succeed pain, and satisfaction succeed need. Nature, like a mother, guesses the desires of the body that has suffered, tries to direct it, and to lure it back. While thus trying to satisfy it, she thereby shares in its desires, and she proposes to accomplish the same ends. It might be said that the body, by itself, possesses desires and inclinations; that nature has some only as a result of the body, and because of it; that, finally the soul is an independent power which grants or refuses what is desired by the organism.

20. As with bodily pain and pleasure so with the bodily desires; their origin, also, must be attributed to what thus stands midway, to that Nature we described as the corporeal.

Body undetermined cannot be imagined to give rise to appetite and purpose, nor can pure soul be occupied about sweet and bitter: all this must belong to what is specifically body but chooses to be something else as well, and so has acquired a restless movement unknown to the soul and by that acquisition is forced to aim at a variety of objects, to seek, as its changing states demand, sweet or bitter, water or warmth, with none of which it could have any concern if it remained untouched by life.

In the case of pleasure and pain we showed how upon distress follows the knowledge of it, and that the soul, seeking to alienate what is causing the condition, inspires a withdrawal which the member primarily affected has itself indicated, in its own mode, by its contraction. Similarly in the case of desire: there is the knowledge in the sensation [the sensitive phase of the soul] and in the next lower phase, that described as the “Nature” which carries the imprint of the soul to the body; that Nature knows the fully formed desire which is the culmination of the less formed desire in body; sensation knows the image thence imprinted upon the Nature; and from the moment of the sensation the soul, which alone is competent, acts upon it, sometimes procuring, sometimes on the contrary resisting, taking control and paying heed neither to that which originated the desire nor to that which subsequently entertained it.

But why, thus, two phases of desire; why should not the body as a determined entity [the living total] be the sole desirer?

Because there are [in man] two distinct things, this Nature and the body, which, through it, becomes a living being: the Nature precedes the determined body which is its creation, made and shaped by it; it cannot originate the desires; they must belong to the living body meeting the experiences of this life and seeking in its distress to alter its state, to substitute pleasure for pain, sufficiency for want: this Nature must be like a mother reading the wishes of a suffering child, and seeking to set it right and to bring it back to herself; in her search for the remedy she attaches herself by that very concern to the sufferer’s desire and makes the child’s experience her own.

In sum, the living body may be said to desire of its own motion in a fore-desiring with, perhaps, purpose as well; Nature desires for, and because of, that living body; granting or withholding belongs to another again, the higher soul.