This natural tendency must be made the starting-point to such a man; he must be drawn by the tone, rhythm and design in things of sense: he must learn to distinguish the MATERIAL FORMS from the Authentic-Existent which is the source of all these correspondences and of the entire reasoned scheme in the work of art: he must be led to the Beauty that manifests itself through these forms; he must be shown that what ravished him was no other than the Harmony of the Intellectual world and the Beauty in that sphere, not some one shape of beauty but the All-Beauty, the Absolute Beauty; and the truths of philosophy must be implanted in him to lead him to faith in that which, unknowing it, he possesses within himself. What these truths are we will show later. Enneads I,3,1
The born lover, to whose degree the musician also may attain – and then either come to a stand or pass beyond – has a certain memory of beauty but, severed from it now, he no longer comprehends it: spellbound by visible loveliness he clings amazed about that. His lesson must be to fall down no longer in bewildered delight before some, one embodied form; he must be led, under a system of mental discipline, to beauty everywhere and made to discern the One<One Principle underlying all, a Principle apart from the MATERIAL FORMS, springing from another source, and elsewhere more truly present. The beauty, for example, in a noble course of life and in an admirably organized social system may be pointed out to him – a first training this in the loveliness of the immaterial – he must learn to recognise the beauty in the arts, sciences, virtues; then these severed and particular forms must be brought under the one<one principle by the explanation of their origin. From the virtues he is to be led to the Intellectual-Principle, to the Authentic-Existent; thence onward, he treads the upward way. Enneads I,3,2
What, then, is it that gives comeliness to MATERIAL FORMS and draws the ear to the sweetness perceived in sounds, and what is the secret of the beauty there is in all that derives from Soul? Is there some One Principle from which all take their grace, or is there a beauty peculiar to the embodied and another for the bodiless? Finally, one or many, what would such a Principle be? Consider that some things, material shapes for instance, are gracious not by anything inherent but by something communicated, while others are lovely of themselves, as, for example, Virtue. Enneads I,6,1
What, then, is this something that shows itself in certain MATERIAL FORMS? This is the natural beginning of our enquiry. Enneads I,6,1
This, indeed, is the mood even of those who, having witnessed the manifestation of Gods or Supernals, can never again feel the old delight in the comeliness of MATERIAL FORMS: what then are we to think of one that contemplates Absolute Beauty in Its essential integrity, no accumulation of flesh and matter, no dweller on earth or in the heavens – so perfect Its purity – far above all such things in that they are non-essential, composite, not primal but descending from This? Beholding this Being – the Choragos of all Existence, the Self-Intent that ever gives forth and never takes – resting, rapt, in the vision and possession of so lofty a loveliness, growing to Its likeness, what Beauty can the soul yet lack? For This, the Beauty supreme, the absolute, and the primal, fashions Its lovers to Beauty and makes them also worthy of love. Enneads I,6,7
The mere fact that, as MATERIAL FORMS, they have bulk means that they can be lopped and crushed and so come to destruction. Enneads IV,7,1
Where we read that the souls or stars stand to their bodily forms as the All to the MATERIAL FORMS within it – for these starry bodies are declared to be members of the soul’s circuit – we are given to understand that the star-souls also enjoy the blissful condition of transcendence and immunity that becomes them. Enneads IV,8,2
Thus there is in the Nature-Principle itself an Ideal archetype of the beauty that is found in MATERIAL FORMS and, of that archetype again, the still more beautiful archetype in Soul, source of that in Nature. In the proficient soul this is brighter and of more advanced loveliness: adorning the soul and bringing to it a light from that greater light which is beauty primally, its immediate presence sets the soul reflecting upon the quality of this prior, the archetype which has no such entries, and is present nowhere but remains in itself alone, and thus is not even to be called a Reason-Principle but is the creative source of the very first Reason-Principle which is the Beauty to which Soul serves as Matter. Enneads V,8,3
Material forms, containing light incorporated in them, need still a light apart from them that their own light may be manifest; just so the Beings of that sphere, all lightsome, need another and a lordlier light or even they would not be visible to themselves and beyond. Enneads VI,7,21