EXACT PSYCHOLOGY AT THE ROOT OF PHILOSOPHY.
16. What is the mingled, and what is the pure part of the soul? What part of the soul is separable? What part is not separable so long as the soul is in a body? What is the animal? This subject will have to be studied elsewhere, for there is practically no agreement on the subject. For the present, let us explain in which sense we above said that the soul governs the universe by Reason.
IS THE UNIVERSAL SOUL CREATIVE, BUT NOT PRESERVATIVE?
Does the universal Soul form all the beings successively, first man, then the horse, then some other animal, and last the wild beasts? Does she begin by producing earth and fire; then, seeing the co-operation of all these things which mutually destroy or assist each other, does she consider only their totality and their connections, without regarding the accidents which occur to them later? Does she limit herself to the reproduction of preceding generations of animals, and does she leave these exposed to the passions with which they inspire each other?
DETERMINISM IMPLIES DEGENERATION OF RACES.
Does the “reason” of each individual contain both his “actions” and “reactions” in a way such that these are neither accidental nor fortuitous, but necessary? Are these produced by the reasons? Or do the reasons know them, without producing them ? Or does the soul, which contains the generative “reasons,” know the effects of all her works by reasoning according to the following principle, that the concourse of the same circumstances must evidently produce the same effects? If so, the soul, understanding or foreseeing the effects of her works, by them determines and concatenates all the events that are to happen. She, therefore, considers all the antecedents and consequents, and foresees what is to follow from what precedes. It is (because the beings thus proceed from each other) that the races continually degenerate. For instance, men degenerate because in departing continually and unavoidably (from the primitive type) the “seminal reasons” yield to the “passions” of matter.
THE SOUL DOES NOT CAUSE PASSIONS, WHICH ARISE FROM THE SEMINAL REASONS.
Is the soul the cause of these passions, because she begets the beings that produce them? Does the soul then consider the whole sequence of events, and does she pass her existence watching the “passions” experienced by her works? Does she never cease thinking of the latter, does she never put on them the finishing touch, regulating them so that they should always go well ? Does she resemble some farmer who, instead of limiting himself to sowing and planting, should ceaselessly labor to repair the damage caused by the rains, the winds, and the storms? Unless this hypothesis be absurd, it must be admitted that the soul knows in advance, or even that the “seminal reasons” contain accidents which happen to begotten beings, that is, their destruction and all the effects of their faults.1 In this case, we are obliged to say that the faults are derived from the (“seminal reasons”), although the arts and their reasons contain neither error, fault, nor destruction of a work of art.
THE UNIVERSE IS HARMONY. IN SPITE OF THE FAULTS IN THE DETAILS.
It might here be objected that there could not be in the universe anything bad or contrary to nature; and it must be acknowledged that even what seems less good still has its utility. If this seem to admit that things that are less good contribute to the perfection of the universe, and that there is no necessity that all things be beautiful, it is only because the very contraries contribute to the perfection of the universe, and so the world could not exist without them. It is likewise with all living beings. The “seminal reason” necessarily produces and forms what is better; what is less good is contained in the “potentiality” of the “reasons,” and “actualized” in the begotten beings. The (universal) Soul has, therefore, no need to busy herself therewith, nor to cause the “reasons” to become active. For the “reasons” successfully subdue matter to what is better (the forms), even though matter alters what it receives by imparting a shock to the “reasons” that proceed from the higher principles. All things, therefore, form a harmonious totality because they simultaneously proceed from matter, and the “reasons” which beget them.
THE METHOD OF CREATION.
17. Let us examine if the “reasons” contained in the Soul are thoughts. How could the Soul produce by thoughts? It is the Reason which produces in matter; but the principle that produces naturally is neither a thought nor an intuition, but a power that fashions matter unconsciously, just as a circle gives water a circular figure and impression. Indeed, the natural generative power has the function of production; but it needs the co-operation of the governing (principle) of the Soul, which forms and which causes the activity of the generative soul engaged in matter. If the governing power of the Soul form the generative soul by reasoning, it will be considering either another object, or what it possesses in herself. If the latter be the case, she has no need of reasoning, for it is not by reasoning that the Soul fashions matter, but by the power which contains the reasons, the power which alone is effective, and capable of production. The Soul, therefore, produces by the forms. The forms she transmits are by her received from the Intelligence. This Intelligence, however, gives the forms to the universal Soul which is located immediately below her, and the universal Soul transmits them to the inferior soul (the natural generative power), fashioning and illuminating her. The inferior soul then produces, at one time without meeting any obstacles, at others, when doing so, although, in the latter case, she produces things less perfect. As she has received the power of production, and as she contains the reasons which are not the first (the “seminal reasons,” which are inferior to the Ideas) not only does she, by virtue of what she has received, produce, but she also draws from herself something which is evidently inferior (matter). It doubtless produces a living being (the universe), but a living being which is less perfect, and which enjoys life much less, because it occupies the last rank, because it is coarse and hard to manage, because the matter which composes it is, as it were, the bitterness or the superior principles, because it spreads its bitterness around her, and communicates some of it to the universe.
EVILS ARE NECESSARY TO THE PERFECTION OF THE UNIVERSE.
18. Must the evils in the universe be considered as necessary, because they are the consequences of the superior principles? Yes, for without them the universe would be imperfect. The greater number of evils, if not all of them, are useful to the universe; such as the venomous animals; though they often ignore their real utility. Even wickedness is useful in certain respects, and can produce many beautiful things; for example, it leads to fine inventions, it forces men to prudence, and does not let them fall asleep in an indolent security.
PICTURE OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE.
Under these circumstances, it is plain that the universal Soul ever contemplates the better principles, because it is turned towards the intelligible world, and towards the divinity. As she fills herself with God, and is filled with God, she, as it were, overflows over her image, namely, the power which holds the last rank (the natural generative power), and which, consequently, is the last creative power. Above this creative power is the power of the Soul which immediately receives the forms from the Intelligence. Above all is the intelligence, the Demiurge, who gives the forms to the universal Soul, and the latter impresses its traces on the third-rank power (the natural generative power).2 This world, therefore, is veritably a picture which perpetually pictures itself. The two first principles are immovable; the third is also immovable (in essence); but it is engaged in matter, and becomes immovable (only) by accident. As long as the Intelligence and the Soul subsist, the “reasons” flow down into this image of the Soul (the natural generative power); likewise, so long as the sun subsists, all light emanates therefrom.
Plotinos is here harking back to his very earliest writing, 1.6, where, before his monistic adventure with Porphyry, he had, under the Numenian influence of Amelius, constructed his system out of a combination of the doctrines of Plato (about the ideas), Aristotle (the distinctions of form and matter and of potentiality and actualization), and the Stoic (the “reasons,” “seminal reasons,” action and passions, and “hexis,” or “habit,” the inorganic informing principle). Of these, Numenius seems to have lacked the Aristotelian doctrines, although he left Plato’s single triple-functioned soul for Aristotle’s combination of souls of various degrees (fr. 53). Piotinos. therefore, seems to have distinguished in every object two elements, matter and form (II. 4.1; II. 5.2). Matter inheres potentially in all beings (II. 5.3, 4) and therefore is non-being, ugliness, and evil (i. 6.6). Form is the actualization (K. Steinhart’s Mclemata Plotiniana, p. 31: II. 5.2) ; that is, the essence and power (VI. 4.9), which are inseparable. Form alone possesses real existence, beauty and goodness. Form has four degrees: idea, reason, nature and habit; which degrees are the same as those of thought and life (Porphyry, Principles 12, 13. 14). The idea is distinguished into ‘idea” or intelligible Form, or “eidos,” principle of human intellectual life. Reason is 1. divine (theios logos, i. 6, 2; the reason that comes from the universal Soul, IV. 3.10), 2, human (principle of the rational life, see Ficinus on II. 6.2); 3, the seminal or generative reason (principle of the life of sensation, which imparts to the body the sense-form, “morphe,” II. 3.12-end; Bouillet. i. 365). Now reasons reside in the soul (II. 4.12), and are simultaneously essences and powers (VI. 4.9), and as powers produce the nature, and as essences, the habits. Now nature (“physis”) is the principle of the vegetative life, and habit, “hexis,” Numenius. fr. 55, see II. 4.16. is the principle of unity of inorganic things. ↩
Plotinos here makes in the world-Soul a distinction analogous to that obtaining in the human one (where there is a reasonable soul, and its image, the vegetative soul, see i. 1.8-12; IV. 4. 13, 14). Here he asserts that there are two souls; the superior soul (the principal power of the soul, which receives the forms from Intelligence (see IV. 4.9-12, 35), and the inferior soul (nature, or the generative power), which transmits them to matter, so as to fashion it by seminal reasons (see iii. 4.13, 14, 22, 27). Bouillet, no doubt remembering Plotinos’s own earlier invectives against those who divided the world-soul (II. 9.6), evidently directed against Amelius and the Numenian influence, which till then he had followed — tries to minimize it, claiming that this does not mean two different hypostases, but only two functions of one and the same hypostasis. But he acknowledges that this gave the foundation for Plotinos’s successors’ distinction between the suoermundane and the mundane souls (hyperkosmios, and egkosmios). Plotinos was therefore returning to Numenius’s two world-souls (fr. 16), which was a necessary logical consequence of his belief in two human souls (fr. 53), as he himself had taught in iii. 8.5. Plotinos objectifies this doubleness of the soul in the myth of the two Hercules, in the next book, L 1.12. 7 2 See II. 92. ↩