Plotino – Tratado 2,5 (IV, 7, 5) — O corpo não pode ser o princípio nem da existência nem do movimento

5. Como pode ela portanto produzir movimentos diferentes e não somente um movimento único sabendo que todo corpo não tem senão um só movimento?

Se se responde que certos destes movimentos têm por causas escolhas prévias e outros “razões”, então responde-se corretamente. Mas a escolha prévia não pertence ao corpo, assim como também não as razões, que permanecem diversas enquanto o corpo é único e simples, e que ele não participa em uma tal razão, senão na medida que esta razão lhe foi dada por aquilo que fez que ele é quente ou frio.

Mas de onde vem ao corpo ele mesmo a faculdade de crescer no tempo que convém e etá certa medida?

Convém que o corpo cresça, mas ele não recebeu ele mesmo em partilha a capacidade de crescer, senão na medida que, na massa material, ele a acolhe estando a serviço disto que efetua o crescimento nele. Pois efetivamente se fosse a alma que devia ela mesma, enquanto corpo, fazer crescer, ela deveria necessariamente também crescer ela mesma, de toda evidência pela adição de um corpo semelhante, se ela devesse guardar suas proporções com o corpo que ela faz crescer. E o que é adicionado é seja uma alma, seja um corpo animado.

E se é uma alma, de onde e com vem ela? E se aquilo que é adicionado não é uma alma, como isso será animado? Como isso estará de acordo com aquilo que estava aí antes dele e como fará um com ele? Esta nova alma, como compartilharia as mesmas opiniões que aquelas da precedente, e isso não à maneira de uma alma estrangeira, ignorante do que sabe a outra? Se uma parte dela mesma desaparece, assim como isso acontece para o resto de nossa massa corporal, enquanto uma outra lhe é adicionada, nada não permanecerá o mesmo. Como portanto poderemos ter lembranças e como reconheceremos as coisas que nos são familiares se não guardamos jamais a mesma alma? Fica bem entendido, se a alma é um corpo e se é da natureza do corpo ser dividido em várias partes, então cada uma destas partes é diferente do todo; de sorte que se a alma é certa grandeza determinada, a grandeza que será menor não poderá ser uma alma, exatamente como é o caso de toda quantidade, que perde sua existência anterior quando lhe é subtraído algo. Mas ao contrário, se uma das coisas que possuem uma grandeza chega a guardar, apesar da diminuição de sua massa, sua identidade graças a sua qualidade, então, mesmo se ela não é mais a mesma enquanto corpo ou enquanto quantidade, ela pode permanecer a mesma graças a sua qualidade, porque ela é distinta de sua quantidade. Bem, aqueles que dizem que a alma é um corpo, que responderão a estas questões? E para começar, a respeito de cada uma das partes da alma que se encontra em um mesmo corpo, dirão que cada parte é uma alma, exatamente como o todo? E adicionarão que assim vai da parte de cada parte? Neste caso, a grandeza da alma não contribuiria em nada a sua realidade. E no entanto, este deveria ser o caso se a alma fosse de uma certa quantidade, e se ela estivesse inteiramente em vários lugares. Eis aí algo que um corpo é incapaz: o mesmo corpo não pode estar inteiramente em vários lugares, assim como a parte não pode ser idêntica ao todo. Mas eles deviam afirmar que cada uma das partes não é uma alma, então sua alma seria feita de partes inanimadas. E além do mais, a grandeza de cada alma seria limitada, e em cada uma das duas direções, o que é de menor ou de maior tamanho não poderá ser uma alma. No entanto, cada vez que um par de gêmeos nasce de uma só união sexual, quer dizer de uma só semente, ou melhor ainda, como é o caso em outros viventes, que nasce de uma só semente um grande número de pequeninos, posto que a semente se dissemina então em vários lugares distintos, cada um destes pequeninos é bem um todo. Como se faz que isso não ensine àqueles que desejam aprender que, quando em uma coisa a parte é idêntica ao todo, a realidade desta coisa excede a quantidade e deve necessariamente ser ela mesma desprovida de quantidade? Esta realidade deveria assim permanecer a mesma mesmo quando dela se subtrai algo de sua quantidade, pois sua quantidade como sua massa não lhe importariam se sua própria realidade consistisse em outra coisa. A alma e as razões são portanto desprovidas de quantidade.

5. ¿Cómo, pues, produce varios movimientos y no uno solo, teniendo como tiene un único movimiento para todo cuerpo? Si se hace descansar la causa de unos actos en decisiones de la voluntad, y la de otros en razones, todo esto está bien; pero hemos de considerar que ni las decisiones de la voluntad ni las razones son cosa privativa del cuerpo, ya que exigen diferencias, en tanto que el cuerpo es uno y simple y la razón en la que participa no es realmente otra que la que le ha sido dada por el que ha hecho que sea cálido o frío. Porque, ¿de dónde podría venir a un cuerpo la facultad de hacer crecer a otro en el curso del tiempo y hasta un cierto límite, si a él lo que le corresponde es crecer y no hacer crecer? Salvo que se tenga en cuenta en la masa material esa parte que sirve al alma para producir el crecimiento por su intermedio.

Si el alma fuese un cuerpo y ella misma hiciese crecer el cuerpo, necesariamente aumentaría ella también. Y es claro que si se le añade un cuerpo semejante, deberá aumentar en la misma proporción que el cuerpo al que ella hace crecer. Ahora bien, la parte que se le añada tendrá que ser o un alma o un cuerpo inanimado. Si es lo primero, ¿de dónde proviene, cómo entra y cómo se añade? Si es lo segundo, ¿cómo llegaría a ser animada y a ponerse de acuerdo con la parte del alma existente con anterioridad? ¿Cómo sería posible la unidad de ambas hasta el punto de que la última participase de las opiniones de la primera, no siendo por tanto como un alma extraña, ignorante de lo que la otra ya conoce? Ocurriría, ciertamente, como con el resto de nuestra masa: esto es, una parte de ella se separaría, otra se integraría, y nada, en resumen, permanecería idéntico. ¿Pero cómo, además, se producirían nuestros recuerdos? ¿Cómo, por ejemplo, reconoceremos a nuestros allegados si no se sirven de la misma alma? Dícese que el alma es un cuerpo. Bien; pero la naturaleza de un cuerpo dividido en varias partes no es la misma en las partes que en el todo. De ahí que, o el alma es una magnitud tal que si disminuye deja de ser un alma, cual ocurre con una cantidad a la que, si se le resta algo, queda convertida en otra cantidad, o es una magnitud que, disminuida en su masa, permanece lo mismo en cuanto a la cualidad. Si es así, resulta diferente en tanto que cuerpo y en tanto que cantidad, pero en lo que respecta a su cualidad, que es algo distinto de su cantidad, puede conservarse idéntica. ¿Qué dirán entonces los que aseguran que el alma es un cuerpo? Habrá que preguntarse en primer lugar: ¿cada una de las partes del alma que se da en un mismo cuerpo es un alma al igual que el todo, sin dejar de ser en modo alguno la parte de la parte? Porque, en ese caso, la magnitud nada añade a su esencia, siendo lo contrario precisamente lo que debiera ocurrir, por tratarse de una cantidad. Por otra parte, el alma se encuentra por entero en muchos lugares, lo que resulta imposible para un cuerpo, que, si se encuentra por entero en muchos sitios, no puede tener sus partes idénticas al todo. Si se arguye que cada una de las partes no es un alma, entonces el alma estará compuesta de partes inanimadas. Y además, si cada alma tiene una magnitud limitada, más allá o más acá de sus límites ya no será realmente un alma.

Sin embargo, cuando de una misma unión y de un mismo germen se producen seres gemelos, o, como ocurre en los otros animales, muchos pequeños cachorros, dado que ese germen se reparte entonces por distintos, lugares en los que cada una de las partes es un todo, ¿cómo no ilustrará el hecho a los que quieren aprender que un ser en el que la parte es idéntica al todo sobrepasa en su misma esencia al ser de la cantidad y debe, necesariamente, carecer de cantidad? Pues es claro que el alma permanece la misma, privada de la cantidad, porque nada tiene que ver con la cantidad ni con la masa, ya que su esencia es algo diferente a todo esto. He aquí, por tanto, que el alma y las razones son ajenas a la cantidad.

THREE MORE PROOFS OF THE INCORPOREITY OF THE SOUL.

5. (h.) (The body has but a single kind of motion, while the soul has different ones.) If the soul is a body, how does it happen that she has different kinds of motion instead of a single one, as is the case with the body? Will these movements be explained by voluntary determinations, and by (seminal) reasons? In this case neither the voluntary determinations, nor these reasons, which differ from each other, can belong to a single and simple body; such a body does not participate in any particular reason except by the principle that made it hot or cold. See Eneada-II-6, on ‘logos’.

BODIES CAN LOSE PARTS, NOT SO THE SOUL.

(i.) (Souls cannot, as do bodies, lose or gain parts, ever remaining identical.) The body has the faculty of making its organs grow within a definite time and in fixed proportions. From where could the soul derive them? Its function is to grow, not to cause growth, unless the principle of growth be comprehended within its material mass. If the soul that makes the body grow was herself a body, she should, on uniting with molecules of a nature similar to hers, develop a growth proportional to that of the organs. In this case, the molecules that will come to add themselves to the soul will be either animate or inanimate; if they are animate, how could they have become such, and from whom will they have received that characteristic? If they are not animate, how will they become such, and how will agreement between them and the first soul arise? How will they form but a single unity with her, and how will they agree with her? Will they not constitute a soul that will remain foreign to the former, who will not possess her requirements of knowledge? This aggregation of molecules that would thus be called soul will resemble the aggregation of molecules that form our body. She would lose parts, she would acquire new ones; she will not be identical. But if we had a soul that was not identical, memory and self-consciousness of our own faculties would be impossible.

THE SOUL IS EVERYWHERE ENTIRE; THAT IS NOT THE CASE WITH THE BODY.

(j.) (The soul, being one and simple, is everywhere entire, and has parts that are identical to the whole; this is not the case with the body.) If the soul is a body, she will have parts that are not identical with the whole, as every body is by nature divisible. If then the soul has a definite magnitude of which she cannot lose anything without ceasing to be a soul, she will by losing her parts, change her nature, as happens to every quantity. If, on losing some part of its magnitude, a body, notwithstanding, remains identical in respect to quality, it does not nevertheless become different from what it was, in respect to quantity, and it remains identical only in respect to quality, which differs from quantity. What shall we answer to those who insist that the soul is a body? Will they say that, in the same: body, each part possesses the same quality as the total soul, and that the case is similar with the part of a part? Then quantity is no longer essential to the nature of the soul; which contradicts the hypothesis that the soul needed to possess a definite! magnitude. Besides the soul is everywhere entire; now it is impossible tor a body to be entire in several places simultaneously, or have parts identical to the whole. If we refuse the name of soul to each part, the soul is then composed of inanimate parts. Besides, if the soul is a definite magnitude, she cannot increase or diminish without ceasing to be a soul; but it often happens that from a single conception or from a single germ are born two or more beings, as is seen in certain animals in whom the germs divide (Eneada-V, 7, 3); in this case, each part is equal to the whole. However superficially considered, this fact demonstrates that the principle in which the part is equal to the whole is essentially superior to quantity, and must necessarily lack any kind of quantity. On this condition alone can the soul remain identical when the body loses its quantity, because she has need of no mass, no quantity, and because her essence is of an entirely different nature. The soul and the (seminal) reasons therefore possess no extension.

V. “With respect to motions also, why are different motions produced by the soul, and ‘not one only, there being but one [natural] motion of every body? But if they assign deliberate choice as the cause of some motions, and reasons [or productive principles] as the causes of others, these indeed are rightly assigned. Deliberate choice, however, does not pertain to body, nor reasons, since they are different, but an elementary body is one and simple. Nor can such a body be full of productive power, except so far as this is imparted to it by that which makes it to be hot or cold. But how can it belong to body to increase at certain times, and to a certain extent, since it is naturally adapted to be increased, except so far as the power of augmenting is assumed in the bulk of matter, and is subservient to that which through it produces the increase ? For if soul being body increases, it is necessary that it should also be increased, viz. by the addition of a similar body, in order that it may be of an equal bulk with that which is increased by it. And that which is added will either be soul, or an inanimate body. And if indeed it is soul, whence and how is it introduced, and how is it added ? But if that which is added is inanimate, how is this animated, how does it accord with the preceding soul, and become one with it, and how does it entertain the same opinions with the former soul ? Will not this added soul, as being foreign, be ignorant of what the other knows ? And in the same manner as with another mass belonging to our frame, there will be an efflux from, and an influx into it, and nothing will continue the same. How, therefore, shall we remember ? And how shall we recognize such things as are appropriate to us, since we shall never employ the same soul ? Moreover, if soul is body, since the nature of body is divided into many parts, each of the parts will not be the same with the whole. If, therefore, soul was a magnitude of a certain quantity, if this quantity should become less, it would no longer be soul; just as the being of every quantity is changed by ablation, from what it was before. But if some one of those things which have magnitude, being diminished in bulk, should remain the same in quality, so far indeed as it is body, and so far as it is quantity, it is different from what it was ; but through quality which is different from quantity it is able to preserve itself the same. What, therefore, will those say who contend that the soul is body? In the first place, indeed, with respect to each part of the soul which is in the same body, is each part soul in the same manner as the whole soul ? And again, is this the case with the part of a part ? For if this is admitted, magnitude will contribute nothing to the essence of the soul; though it is necessary that it should if soul is a certain quantity. The whole soul, likewise, is every where present with the body; but it is impossible for the same corporeal whole to be in many things at the same time, or for a part of it to be the same as the whole. And if they say that each of the parts is not soul, then according to them, soul will consist of things inanimate. Besides, if the magnitude of each soul is definite, it will no longer be soul, if it is either extended or diminished. When, therefore, from one copulation and one seed, twins are begotten, or as in other animals many offspring are produced, most of the seed being distributed into many places, where also each part of the seed is a whole, how is it possible this should not teach those who are willing to learn, that where the part is the same with the whole, this in the very essence of itself transcends the nature of quantity; and ought from necessity to be without quantity. For thus alone it can remain the same, quantity being withdrawn, since it has no need of either quantity or bulk, its essence being something different from either. Hence soul and reasons [or productive principles] are void of quantity.

5. Again, there is movement: all bodily movement is uniform; failing an incorporeal soul, how account for diversity of movement? Predilections, reasons, they will say; that is all very well, but these already contain that variety and therefore cannot belong to body which is one and simplex, and, besides, is not participant in reason – that is, not in the sense here meant, but only as it is influenced by some principle which confers upon it the qualities of, for instance, being warm or cold.

Then there is growth under a time-law, and within a definite limit: how can this belong strictly to body? Body can indeed be brought to growth, but does not itself grow except in the sense that in the material mass a capacity for growing is included as an accessory to some principle whose action upon the body causes growth.

Supposing the soul to be at once a body and the cause of growth, then, if it is to keep pace with the substance it augments, it too must grow; that means it must add to itself a similar bodily material. For the added material must be either soul or soulless body: if soul, whence and how does it enter, and by what process is it adjoined [to the soul which by hypothesis is body]; if soulless, how does such an addition become soul, falling into accord with its precedent, making one thing with it, sharing the stored impressions and notions of that initial soul instead, rather, of remaining an alien ignoring all the knowledge laid up before?

Would not such a soulless addition be subject to just such loss and gain of substance, in fact to the non-identity, which marks the rest of our material mass?

And, if this were so, how explain our memories or our recognition of familiar things when we have no stably identical soul?

Assume soul to be a body: now in the nature of body, characteristically divisible, no one of the parts can be identical with the entire being; soul, then, is a thing of defined size, and if curtailed must cease to be what it is; in the nature of a quantitative entity this must be so, for, if a thing of magnitude on diminution retains its identity in virtue of its quality, this is only saying that bodily and quantitatively it is different even if its identity consists in a quality quite independent of quantity.

What answer can be made by those declaring soul to be corporeal? Is every part of the soul, in any one body, soul entire, soul perfectly true to its essential being? and may the same be said of every part of the part? If so, the magnitude makes no contribution to the soul’s essential nature, as it must if soul [as corporeal] were a definite magnitude: it is, as body cannot be, an “all-everywhere,” a complete identity present at each and every point, the part all that the whole is.

To deny that every part is soul is to make soul a compound from soulless elements. Further, if a definite magnitude, the double limit of larger or smaller, is to be imposed upon each separate soul, then anything outside those limits is no soul.

Now, a single coition and a single sperm suffice to a twin birth or in the animal order to a litter; there is a splitting and diverging of the seed, every diverging part being obviously a whole: surely no honest mind can fail to gather that a thing in which part is identical with whole has a nature which transcends quantity, and must of necessity be without quantity: only so could it remain identical when quantity is filched from it, only by being indifferent to amount or extension, by being in essence something apart. Thus the Soul and the Reason-Principles are without quantity.