IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL?
1. Are we immortal, or does all of us die? (Another possibility would be that) of the two parts of which we are composed, the one might be fated to be dissolved and perish, while the other, that constitutes our very personality, might subsist perpetually. These problems must be solved by a study of our nature.
THE BODY AS THE INSTRUMENT OF THE SOUL.
Man is not a simple being; he contains a soul and a body, which is united to this soul, either as tool, or in some other manner (As pilot, perhaps, Eneada-IV, 3, 21). This is how we must distinguish the soul from the body, and determine the nature and manner of existence (“being”) of each of them.
THE BODY IS COMPOSITE, AND THEREFORE PERISHABLE.
As the nature of the body is composite, reason convinces us that it cannot last perpetually, and our senses show it to us dissolved, destroyed, and decayed, because the elements that compose it return to join the elements of the same nature, altering, destroying them and each other, especially when this chaos is abandoned to the soul, which alone keeps her parts combined. Even if a body were taken alone, it would not be a unity; it may be analyzed into form and matter, principles that are necessary to the constitution of all bodies, even of those that are simple (Eneada-II, 4, 6). Besides, as they contain extension, the bodies can be cut, divided into infinitely small parts, and thus perish (Eneada-II, 7, 1). Therefore if our body is a part of ourselves (Eneada-I, 1, 10), not all of us is immortal; if the body is only the instrument of the soul, as the body is given to the soul only for a definite period, it still is by nature perishable.
THE SOUL IS THE INDIVIDUALITY, AS ITS FORM, AND AS A SKILLED WORKMAN.
The soul, which is the principal part of man, and which constitutes man himself (Eneada-I, 9, 8), should bear to the body the relation of form to matter, or of a workman to his tool; in both cases the soul is the man himself.