But the Archetypes of all such qualities, the foundation in which they exist primarily, these are Activities of the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS. Enneads II,6,3
When we seize anything in the direct intellectual act there is room for nothing else than to know and to contemplate the object; and in the knowing there is not included any previous knowledge; all such assertion of stage and progress belongs to the lower and is a sign of the altered; this means that, once purely in the Intellectual, no one of us can have any memory of our experience here. Further; if all intellection is timeless – as appears from the fact that the Intellectual beings are of eternity not of time – there can be no memory in the intellectual world, not merely none of earthly things but none whatever: all is presence There; for nothing passes away, there is no change from old to new. Enneads IV,4,1
But this power which determines memory is it also the principle by which the Supreme becomes effective in us? At any time when we have not been in direct vision of that sphere, memory is the source of its activity within us; when we have possessed that vision, its presence is due to the principle by which we enjoyed it: this principle awakens where it wakens; and it alone has vision in that order; for this is no matter to be brought to us by way of analogy, or by the syllogistic reasoning whose grounds lie elsewhere; the power which, even here, we possess of discoursing upon the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS is vested, as we show, in that principle which alone is capable of their contemplation. That, we must awaken, so to speak, and thus attain the vision of the Supreme, as one, standing on some lofty height and lifting his eyes, sees what to those that have not mounted with him is invisible. Enneads IV,4,5
The Soul is the Reason-Principle of the universe, ultimate among the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS – its own essential Nature is one of the Beings of the Intellectual Realm – but it is the primal Reason-Principle of the entire realm of sense. Enneads IV,6,3
(18) But how does the soul enter into body from the aloofness of the Intellectual? There is the Intellectual-Principle which remains among the intellectual beings, living the purely intellective life; and this, knowing no impulse or appetite, is for ever stationary in that Realm. But immediately following upon it, there is that which has acquired appetite and, by this accruement, has already taken a great step outward; it has the desire of elaborating order on the model of what it has seen in the Intellectual-Principle: pregnant by those Beings, and in pain to the birth, it is eager to make, to create. In this new zest it strains towards the realm of sense: thus, while this primal soul in union with the Soul of the All transcends the sphere administered, it is inevitably turned outward, and has added the universe to its concern: yet in choosing to administer the partial and exiling itself to enter the place in which it finds its appropriate task, it still is not wholly and exclusively held by body: it is still in possession of the unembodied; and the Intellectual-Principle in it remains immune. As a whole it is partly in body, partly outside: it has plunged from among the primals and entered this sphere of tertiaries: the process has been an activity of the Intellectual-Principle, which thus, while itself remaining in its identity, operates throughout the soul to flood the universe with beauty and penetrant order – immortal mind, eternal in its unfailing energy, acting through immortal soul. Enneads IV,7,13
And so the First is not a thing among the things contained by the Intellectual-Principle though the source of all. In virtue of this source, things of the later order are essential beings; for from that fact there is determination; each has its form: what has being cannot be envisaged as outside of limit; the nature must be held fast by boundary and fixity; though to the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS this fixity is no more than determination and form, the foundations of their substantial existence. Enneads V,1,7
We are obliged also to ask whether to Aristotle’s mind all INTELLECTUAL BEINGS spring from one, and that one their First; or whether the Principles in the Intellectual are many. Enneads V,1,9
But we must keep in mind what this “outside” means. Up to the production of the image, the Intellectual realm is wholly and exclusively composed of INTELLECTUAL BEINGS: in the same way the Sensible world, representing that in so far as it is able to retain the likeness of a living being, is itself a living being: the relation is like that of a portrait or reflection to the original which is regarded as prior to the water or the painting reproducing it. Enneads VI,2,22
Thus we may liken the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS in their diversity to many centres coinciding with the one centre and themselves at one in it but appearing multiple on account of the radial lines – lines which do not generate the centres but merely lead to them. The radii, thus, afford a serviceable illustration for the mode of contact by which the Intellectual Unity manifests itself as multiple and multipresent. Enneads VI,5,5
The INTELLECTUAL BEINGS, thus, are multiple and one; in virtue of their infinite nature their unity is a multiplicity, many in one and one over many, a unit-plurality. They act as entire upon entire; even upon the partial thing they act as entire; but there is the difference that at first the partial accepts this working only partially though the entire enters later. Thus, when Man enters into human form there exists a particular man who, however, is still Man. From the one thing Man – man in the Idea – material man has come to constitute many individual men: the one identical thing is present in multiplicity, in multi-impression, so to speak, from the one seal. Enneads VI,5,6
Granted, then, that there exist, apart from things, a unity absolute and a decad absolute in other words, that the Intellectual beings, together with their characteristic essence have also their order, Henads, Dyads, Triads, what is the nature of these numerical entities and how does it come into being? We cannot but think that some reason accounts for their origin. Enneads VI,6,6
It is our view that there does exist an infinite line, among the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS: for There a line would not be quantitative and being without quantity could be numerically infinite. This however would be in another mode than that of limitless extension. In what mode then? In that the conception of the Absolute Line does not include the conception of limit. Enneads VI,6,17
What then does it effect out of its greatness? It has produced Intellectual-Principle, it has produced Life, the souls which Intellectual-Principle sends forth and everything else that partakes of Reason, of Intellectual-Principle or of Life. Source and spring of so much, how describe its goodness and greatness? But what does it effect now? Even now it is preserver of what it produced; by it the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS have their Intellection and the living their life; it breathes Intellect in breathes Life in and, where life is impossible, existence. Enneads VI,7,23
The main part of the difficulty is that awareness of this Principle comes neither by knowing nor by the Intellection that discovers the INTELLECTUAL BEINGS but by a presence overpassing all knowledge. In knowing, soul or mind abandons its unity; it cannot remain a simplex: knowing is taking account of things; that accounting is multiple; the mind, thus plunging into number and multiplicity, departs from unity. Enneads VI,9,4