Motion

MOTION, for example, is different from Being, but plays about it, springing from it and living within it: Matter is, so to speak, the outcast of Being, it is utterly removed, irredeemably what it was from the beginning: in origin it was Non-Being and so it remains. Enneads: II V.

The extent of the Movement of the All, then? The Celestial Circuit may, no doubt, be thought of in terms of quantity. It answers to measure – in two ways. First there is space; the movement is commensurate with the area it passes through, and this area is its extent. But this gives us, still, space only, not Time. Secondly, the circuit, considered apart from distance traversed, has the extent of its continuity, of its tendency not to stop but to proceed indefinitely: but this is merely amplitude of Movement; search it, tell its vastness, and, still, Time has no more appeared, no more enters into the matter, than when one certifies a high pitch of heat; all we have discovered is MOTION in ceaseless succession, like water flowing ceaselessly, motion and extent of motion. Enneads III,7,

Thus the Primals (the first “Categories”) are seen to be: Intellectual-Principle; Existence; Difference; Identity: we must include also MOTION and Rest: MOTION provides for the intellectual act, Rest preserves identity as Difference gives at once a Knower and a Known, for, failing this, all is one, and silent. Enneads: V I

Act moreover incontestably manifests itself in Substance, as was found to be the case with Quality: it is connected with Substance as being a form of motion. But MOTION is a distinct genus: for, seeing that Quality is a distinct attribute of Substance, and Quality a distinct attribute, and Relative takes its being from the relation of one substance to another, there can be no reason why MOTION, also an attribute of Substance, should not also constitute a distinct genus. Enneads: VI I

If it be urged that MOTION is but imperfect Act, there would be no objection to giving priority to Act and subordinating to it MOTION with its imperfection as a species: Act would thus be predicated of MOTION, but with the qualification “imperfect.” Enneads: VI I

MOTION is thought of as imperfect, not because it is not an Act, but because, entirely an Act, it yet entails repetition (lacks finality). It repeats, not in order that it may achieve actuality – it is already actual – but that it may attain a goal distinct from itself and posterior: it is not the motion itself that is then consummated but the result at which it aims. Walking is walking from the outset; when one should traverse a racecourse but has not yet done so, the deficiency lies not in the walking – not in the motion – but in the amount of walking accomplished; no matter what the amount, it is walking and motion already: a moving man has motion and a cutter cuts before there is any question of Quantity. And just as we can speak of Act without implying time, so we can of MOTION, except in the sense of motion over a defined area; Act is timeless, and so is MOTION pure and simple. Enneads: VI I

Are we told that MOTION is necessarily in time, inasmuch as it involves continuity? But, at this, sight, never ceasing to see, will also be continuous and in time. Our critic, it is true, may find support in that principle of proportion which states that you may make a division of no matter what motion, and find that neither the motion nor its duration has any beginning but that the division may be continued indefinitely in the direction of the motion’s origin: this would mean that a motion just begun has been in progress from an infinity of time, that it is infinite as regards its beginning. Enneads: VI I

Such then is the result of separating Act from MOTION: Act, we aver, is timeless; yet we are forced to maintain not only that time is necessary to quantitative motion, but, unreservedly, that MOTION is quantitative in its very nature; though indeed, if it were a case of motion occupying a day or some other quantity of time, the exponents of this view would be the first to admit that Quantity is present to MOTION only by way of accident. Enneads: VI I

In sum, just as Act is timeless, so there is no reason why MOTION also should not primarily be timeless, time attaching to it only in so far as it happens to have such and such an extension. Enneads: VI I

Timeless change is sanctioned in the expression, “as if change could not take place all at once”; if then change is timeless, why not MOTION also? – Change, be it noted, is here distinguished from the result of change, the result being unnecessary to establish the change itself. Enneads: VI I

We may be told that neither Act nor MOTION requires a genus for itself, but that both revert to Relation, Act belonging to the potentially active, MOTION to the potentially motive. Our reply is that Relation produces relatives as such, and not the mere reference to an external standard; given the existence of a thing, whether attributive or relative, it holds its essential character prior to any relationship: so then must Act and MOTION, and even such an attribute as habit; they are not prevented from being prior to any relationship they may occupy, or from being conceivable in themselves. Otherwise, everything will be relative; for anything you think of – even Soul – bears some relationship to something else. Enneads: VI I

But, to return to activity proper and the action, is there any reason why these should be referred to Relation? They must in every instance be either MOTION or Act. Enneads: VI I

If however activity is referred to Relation and the action made a distinct genus, why is not MOTION referred to Relation and the movement made a distinct genus? Why not bisect the unity, MOTION, and so make Action and Passion two species of the one thing, ceasing to consider Action and Passion as two genera? Enneads: VI I

There are other questions calling for consideration: First: Are both Acts and motions to be included in the category of Action, with the distinction that Acts are momentary while MOTIONs, such as cutting, are in time? Or will both be regarded as motions or as involving MOTION? Secondly: Will all activities be related to passivity, or will some – for example, walking and speaking – be considered as independent of it? Thirdly: Will all those related to passivity be classed as motions and the independent as Acts, or will the two classes overlap? Walking, for instance, which is an independent, would, one supposes, be a motion; thinking, which also does not essentially involve “passivity,” an Act: otherwise we must hold that thinking and walking are not even actions. But if they are not in the category of Action, where then in our classification must they fall? It may perhaps be urged that the act of thinking, together with the faculty of thought, should be regarded as relative to the thought object; for is not the faculty of sensation treated as relative to the sensible object? If then, we may ask, in the analogue the faculty of sensation is treated as relative to the sensible object, why not the sensory act as well? The fact is that even sensation, though related to an external object, has something besides that relation: it has, namely, its own status of being either an Act or a Passion. Now the Passion is separable from the condition of being attached to some object and caused by some object: so, then, is the Act a distinct entity. Walking is similarly attached and caused, and yet has besides the status of being a motion. It follows that thought, in addition to its relationship, will have the status of being either a motion or an Act. Enneads: VI I

We have to ask ourselves whether there are not certain Acts which without the addition of a time-element will be thought of as imperfect and therefore classed with motions. Take for instance living and life. The life of a definite person implies a certain adequate period, just as his happiness is no merely instantaneous thing. Life and happiness are, in other words, of the nature ascribed to MOTION: both therefore must be treated as motions, and MOTION must be regarded as a unity, a single genus; besides the quantity and quality belonging to Substance we must take count of the motion manifested in it. Enneads: VI I

But though not opposed, it is still different from Action and cannot belong to the same genus as activity; though if they are both MOTION, it will so belong, on the principle that alteration must be regarded as qualitative motion. Enneads: VI I

Passivity, thus, implies the existence within of a motion functioning somehow or other in the direction of alteration. Action too implies motion within, whether the motion be aimless or whether it be driven by the impulse comported by the term “Action” to find its goal in an external object. There is MOTION in both Action and Passion, but the differentia distinguishing Action from Passion keeps Action impassive, while Passion is recognised by the fact that a new state replaces the old, though nothing is added to the essential character of the patient; whenever Being (essential Being) is produced, the patient remains distinct. Enneads: VI I

Having thus introduced Intellect and its life we make a single genus of what is common to all life, namely, MOTION. Substance and the MOTION, which constitutes the highest life, we must consider as two genera; for even though they form a unity, they are separable to thought which finds their unity not a unity; otherwise, it could not distinguish them. Enneads VI,2,

Observe also how in other things MOTION or life is clearly separated from Being – a separation impossible, doubtless, in True Being, but possible in its shadow and namesake. In the portrait of a man much is left out, and above all the essential thing, life: the “Being” of sensible things just such a shadow of True Being, an abstraction from that Being complete which was life in the Archetype; it is because of this incompleteness that we are able in the Sensible world to separate Being from life and life from Being. Enneads VI,2,

Being, then, containing many species, has but one genus. MOTION, however, is to be classed as neither a subordinate nor a supplement of Being but as its concomitant; for we have not found Being serving as substrate to MOTION. MOTION is being Act; neither is separated from the other except in thought; the two natures are one; for Being is inevitably actual, not potential. Enneads VI,2,

No doubt we observe MOTION and Being separately, MOTION as contained in Being and Being as involved in MOTION, and in the individual they may be mutually exclusive; but the dualism is an affirmation of our thought only, and that thought sees either form as a duality within a unity. Enneads VI,2,

Now MOTION, thus manifested in conjunction with Being, does not alter Being’s nature – unless to complete its essential character – and it does retain for ever its own peculiar nature: at once, then, we are forced to introduce Stability. To reject Stability would be more unreasonable than to reject MOTION; for Stability is associated in our thought and conception with Being even more than with MOTION; unalterable condition, unchanging mode, single Reason-Principle – these are characteristics of the higher sphere. Enneads VI,2,

Stability, then, may also be taken as a single genus. Obviously distinct from MOTION and perhaps even its contrary, that it is also distinct from Being may be shown by many considerations. We may especially observe that if Stability were identical with Being, so also would MOTION be, with equal right. Why identity in the case of Stability and not in that of MOTION, when MOTION is virtually the very life and Act both of Substance and of Absolute Being? However, on the very same principle on which we separated MOTION from Being with the understanding that it is the same and not the same – that they are two and yet one – we also separate Stability from Being, holding it, yet, inseparable; it is only a logical separation entailing the inclusion among the Existents of this other genus. To identify Stability with Being, with no difference between them, and to identify Being with MOTION, would be to identify Stability with MOTION through the mediation of Being, and so to make MOTION and Stability one and the same thing. Enneads VI,2,

We cannot indeed escape positing these three, Being, MOTION, Stability, once it is the fact that the Intellect discerns them as separates; and if it thinks of them at all, it posits them by that very thinking; if they are thought, they exist. Things whose existence is bound up with Matter have no being in the Intellect: these three principles are however free of Matter; and in that which goes free of Matter to be thought is to be. Enneads VI,2,

Being, the most firmly set of all things, that in virtue of which all other things receive Stability, possesses this Stability not as from without but as springing within, as inherent. Stability is the goal of intellection, a Stability which had no beginning, and the state from which intellection was impelled was Stability, though Stability gave it no impulsion; for MOTION neither starts from MOTION nor ends in MOTION. Again, the Form-Idea has Stability, since it is the goal of Intellect: intellection is the Form’s MOTION. Enneads VI,2,

Thus all the Existents are one, at once MOTION and Stability; MOTION and Stability are genera all-pervading, and every subsequent is a particular being, a particular stability and a particular motion. Enneads VI,2,

We have caught the radiance of Being, and beheld it in its three manifestations: Being, revealed by the Being within ourselves; the MOTION of Being, revealed by the motion within ourselves; and its Stability revealed by ours. We accommodate our being, motion, stability to those (of the Archetypal), unable however to draw any distinction but finding ourselves in the presence of entities inseparable and, as it were, interfused. We have, however, in a sense, set them a little apart, holding them down and viewing them in isolation; and thus we have observed Being, Stability, MOTION – these three, of which each is a unity to itself; in so doing, have we not regarded them as being different from each other? By this posing of three entities, each a unity, we have, surely, found Being to contain Difference. Enneads VI,2,

Again, inasmuch as we restore them to an all-embracing unity, identifying all with unity, do we not see in this amalgamation Identity emerging as a Real Existent? Thus, in addition to the other three (Being, MOTION, Stability), we are obliged to posit the further two, Identity and Difference, so that we have in all five genera. In so doing, we shall not withhold Identity and Difference from the subsequents of the Intellectual order; the thing of Sense has, it is clear, a particular identity and a particular difference, but Identity and Difference have the generic status independently of the particular. Enneads VI,2,

They will, moreover, be primary genera, because nothing can be predicated of them as denoting their essential nature. Nothing, of course we mean, but Being; but this Being is not their genus, since they cannot be identified with any particular being as such. Similarly, Being will not stand as genus to MOTION or Stability, for these also are not its species. Beings (or Existents) comprise not merely what are to be regarded as species of the genus Being, but also participants in Being. On the other hand, Being does not participate in the other four principles as its genera: they are not prior to Being; they do not even attain to its level. Enneads VI,2,

It may be contended that the unity which is implicit in Being and in MOTION is common to all other things, and that therefore Being and unity are inseparable. But we rejected the idea that Being is a genus comprising all things, on the ground that these things are not beings in the sense of the Absolute Being, but beings in another mode: in the same way, we assert, unity is not a genus, the Primary Unity having a character distinct from all other unities. Enneads VI,2,

Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently associated with Being. MOTION is bound up with Actual Being (Being-in-Act), since it is its life; with MOTION, Stability too gained its foothold in Reality; with these are associated Difference and Identity, so that they also are seen in conjunction with Being. But number (the basis of Quantity) is a posterior. It is posterior not only with regard to these genera but also within itself; in number the posterior is divided from the prior; this is a sequence in which the posteriors are latent in the priors (and do not appear simultaneously). Number therefore cannot be included among the primary genera; whether it constitutes a genus at all remains to be examined. Enneads VI,2,

We may take it as clear that it is the nature of Quantity to indicate a certain quantum, and to measure the quantum of the particular; Quantity is moreover, in a sense, itself a quantum. But if the quantum is the common element in number and magnitude, either we have number as a primary with magnitude derived from it, or else number must consist of a blending of MOTION and Stability, while magnitude will be a form of MOTION or will originate in MOTION, MOTION going forth to infinity and Stability creating the unit by checking that advance. Enneads VI,2,

But the problem of the origin of number and magnitude, or rather of how they subsist and are conceived, must be held over. It may, thus, be found that number is among the primary genera, while magnitude is posterior and composite; or that number belongs to the genus Stability, while magnitude must be consigned to MOTION. But we propose to discuss all this at a later stage. Enneads VI,2,

How then do the four genera complete Substance without qualifying it or even particularizing it? It has been observed that Being is primary, and it is clear that none of the four – MOTION, Stability, Difference, Identity – is distinct from it. That this MOTION does not produce Quality is doubtless also clear, but a word or two will make it clearer still. Enneads VI,2,

If MOTION is the Act of Substance, and Being and the Primaries in general are its Act, then MOTION is not an accidental attribute: as the Act of what is necessarily actual (what necessarily involves Act), it is no longer to be considered as the complement of Substance but as Substance itself. For this reason, then, it has not been assigned to a posterior class, or referred to Quality, but has been made contemporary with Being. Enneads VI,2,

The truth is not that Being first is and then takes MOTION, first is and then acquires Stability: neither Stability nor MOTION is a mere modification of Being. Similarly, Identity and Difference are not later additions: Being did not grow into plurality; its very unity was a plurality; but plurality implies Difference, and unity-in-plurality involves Identity. Enneads VI,2,

Whether time is There, remains to be considered. Apparently it has less claim than even Place. If it is a measurement, and that a measurement of MOTION, we have two entities; the whole is a composite and posterior to MOTION; therefore it is not on an equal footing with MOTION in our classification. Enneads VI,2,

Action and Passivity presuppose MOTION; if, then, they exist in the higher sphere, they each involve a duality; neither is a simplex. Enneads VI,2,

It is true that we do not hesitate to speak of the goodness inherent in Being” when we are thinking of that Act by which Being tends, of its nature, towards the One: thus, we affirm goodness of it in the sense that it is thereby moulded into the likeness of The Good. But if this “goodness inherent in Being” is an Act directed toward The Good, it is the life of Being: but this life is MOTION, and MOTION is already one of the genera. Enneads VI,2,

If, again, we mean beauty in relation to ourselves as spectators in whom it produces a certain experience, this Act (of production) is MOTION – and none the less MOTION by being directed towards Absolute Beauty. Enneads VI,2,

Knowledge again, is MOTION originating in the self; it is the observation of Being – an Act, not a State: hence it too falls under MOTION, or perhaps more suitably under Stability, or even under both; if under both, knowledge must be thought of as a complex, and if a complex, is posterior. Enneads VI,2,

But if all come into existence simultaneously, what else is produced but that amalgam of all Existents which we have just considered (Intellect)? How can other things exist over and above this all-including amalgam? And if all the constituents of this amalgam are genera, how do they produce species? How does MOTION produce species of MOTION? Similarly with Stability and the other genera. Enneads VI,2,

Why not resort to analogy? Admitted that the classification of the Sensible cannot proceed along the identical lines marked out for the Intellectual: is there any reason why we should not for Intellectual-Being substitute Matter, and for Intellectual MOTION substitute Sensible Form, which is in a sense the life and consummation of Matter? The inertia of Matter would correspond with Stability, while the Identity and Difference of the Intellectual would find their counterparts in the similarity and diversity which obtain in the Sensible realm. Enneads VI,3,

But, in the first place, Matter does not possess or acquire Form as its life or its Act; Form enters it from without, and remains foreign to its nature. Secondly, Form in the Intellectual is an Act and a motion; in the Sensible MOTION is different from Form and accidental to it: Form in relation to Matter approximates rather to Stability than to MOTION; for by determining Matter’s indetermination it confers upon it a sort of repose. Enneads VI,3,

The “mere predicates” fall under the category of Relation: such are cause and element. The accidents included in the composite substances ire found to be either Quality or Quantity; those which are inclusive are of the nature of Space and Time. Activities and experiences comprise MOTIONs; consequents Space and Time, which are consequents respectively of the Composites and of MOTION. Enneads VI,3,

The first three entities (Matter, Form, Composite) go, as we have discovered, to make a single common genus, the Sensible counterpart of Substance. Then follow in order Relation, Quantity, Quality, Time-during-which, Place-in-which, MOTION; though, with Time and Space already included (under Relation), Time-during-which and Place-in-which become superfluous. Enneads VI,3,

Thus we have five genera, counting the first three entities as one. If the first three are not massed into a unity, the series will be Matter, Form, Composite, Relation, Quantity, Quality, MOTION. The last three may, again, be included in Relation, which is capable of bearing this wider extension. Enneads VI,3,

What, then, we have to ask, is the constant element in the first three entities? What is it that identifies them with their inherent Substance? Is it the capacity to serve as a base? But Matter, we maintain, serves as the base and seat of Form: Form, thus, will be excluded from the category of Substance. Again, the Composite is the base and seat of attributes: hence, Form combined with Matter will be the basic ground of Composites, or at any rate of all posteriors of the Composite – Quantity, Quality, MOTION, and the rest. Enneads VI,3,

We may be told that neither Time nor Place is present in a subject. But if the definition of Time as the measure of MOTION be regarded as denoting something measured, the “measure” will be present in MOTION as in a subject, while MOTION will be present in the moved: if, on the contrary, it be supposed to signify a principle of measurement, the “measure” will be present in the measurer. Enneads VI,3,

Now we have often maintained that number and magnitude are to be regarded as the only true quantities, and that Space and Time have no right to be conceived as quantitative: Time as the measure of MOTION should be assigned to Relation, while Space, being that which circumscribes Body, is also a relative and falls under the same category; though continuous, it is, like MOTION, not included in Quantity. Enneads VI,3,

Syllable and discourse are only indirectly quantities or substrates of Quantity; it is voice that is quantitative: but voice is a kind of MOTION; it must accordingly in any case (quantity or no quantity) be referred to MOTION, as must activity also. Enneads VI,3,

Surely, it may be interposed, five differs from three by two. No: it exceeds it by two; we do not say that it differs: how could it differ by a “two” in the “three”? We may add that neither can MOTION differ from MOTION by MOTION. There is, in short, no parallel in any of the other genera. Enneads VI,3,

Passivity, while it lasts, is not a quality but a motion; when it is a past experience remaining in one’s possession, it is a quality; if one ceases to possess the experience then regarded as a finished occurrence, one is considered to have been moved – in other words, to have been in MOTION. But in none of these cases is it necessary to conceive of anything but MOTION; the idea of time should be excluded; even present time has no right to be introduced. Enneads VI,3,

It remains to consider whether blushing should be referred to Quality, even though the person blushing is not included in this category. The fact of becoming flushed is rightly not referred to Quality; for it involves passivity – in short, MOTION. But if one has ceased to become flushed and is actually red, this is surely a case of Quality, which is independent of time. How indeed are we to define Quality but by the aspect which a substance presents? By predicating of a man redness, we clearly ascribe to him a quality. Enneads VI,3,

The claim of MOTION to be established as a genus will depend upon three conditions: first, that it cannot rightly be referred to any other genus; second, that nothing higher than itself can be predicated of it in respect of its essence; third, that by assuming differences it will produce species. These conditions satisfied, we may consider the nature of the genus to which we shall refer it. Enneads VI,3,

Clearly it cannot be identified with either the Substance or the Quality of the things which possess it. It cannot, further, be consigned to Action, for Passivity also comprises a variety of motions; nor again to Passivity itself, because many motions are actions: on the contrary, actions and passions are to be referred to MOTION. Enneads VI,3,

If we are agreed that Quality and Quantity, though attributive, are real entities, and on the basis of this reality distinguishable as Quality and Quantity respectively: then, on the same principle, since MOTION, though an attribute has a reality prior to its attribution, it is incumbent upon us to discover the intrinsic nature of this reality. We must never be content to regard as a relative something which exists prior to its attribution, but only that which is engendered by Relation and has no existence apart from the relation to which it owes its name: the double, strictly so called, takes birth and actuality in juxtaposition with a yard’s length, and by this very process of being juxtaposed with a correlative acquires the name and exhibits the fact of being double. Enneads VI,3,

What, then, is that entity, called MOTION, which, though attributive, has an independent reality, which makes its attribution possible – the entity corresponding to Quality, Quantity and Substance? But first, perhaps, we should make sure that there is nothing prior to MOTION and predicated of it as its genus. Enneads VI,3,

Change may be suggested as a prior. But, in the first place, either it is identical with MOTION, or else, if change be claimed as a genus, it will stand distinct from the genera so far considered: secondly, MOTION will evidently take rank as a species and have some other species opposed to it – becoming, say – which will be regarded as a change but not as a motion. Enneads VI,3,

What, then, is the ground for denying that becoming is a motion? The fact, perhaps, that what comes to be does not yet exist, whereas MOTION has no dealings with the non-existent. But, on that ground, becoming will not be a change either. If however it be alleged that becoming is merely a type of alteration or growth since it takes place when things alter and grow, the antecedents of becoming are being confused with becoming itself. Yet becoming, entailing as it does these antecedents, must necessarily be a distinct species; for the event and process of becoming cannot be identified with merely passive alteration, like turning hot or white: it is possible for the antecedents to take place without becoming as such being accomplished, except in so far as the actual alteration (implied in the antecedents) has “come to be”; where, however, an animal or a vegetal life is concerned, becoming (or birth) takes place only upon its acquisition of a Form. Enneads VI,3,

The contrary might be maintained: that change is more plausibly ranked as a species than is MOTION, because change signifies merely the substitution of one thing for another, whereas MOTION involves also the removal of a thing from the place to which it belongs, as is shown by locomotion. Even rejecting this distinction, we must accept as types of MOTION knowledge and musical performance – in short, changes of condition: thus, alteration will come to be regarded as a species of MOTION – namely, motion displacing. Enneads VI,3,

But suppose that we identify alteration with MOTION on the ground that MOTION itself results in difference: how then do we proceed to define MOTION? It may roughly be characterized as the passage from the potentiality to its realization. That is potential which can either pass into a Form – for example, the potential statue – or else pass into actuality – such as the ability to walk: whenever progress is made towards the statue, this progress is MOTION; and when the ability to walk is actualized in walking, this walking is itself MOTION: dancing is, similarly, the motion produced by the potential dancer taking his steps. Enneads VI,3,

In the one type of MOTION a new Form comes into existence created by the motion; the other constitutes, as it were, the pure Form of the potentiality, and leaves nothing behind it when once the motion has ceased. Accordingly, the view would not be unreasonable which, taking some Forms to be active, others inactive, regarded MOTION as a dynamic Form in opposition to the other Forms which are static, and further as the cause of whatever new Form ensues upon it. To proceed to identify this bodily motion with life would however be unwarrantable; it must be considered as identical only in name with the motions of Intellect and Soul. Enneads VI,3,

That MOTION is a genus we may be all the more confident in virtue of the difficulty – the impossibility even – of confining it within a definition. Enneads VI,3,

But how can it be a Form in cases where the motion leads to deterioration, or is purely passive? MOTION, we may suggest, is like the heat of the sun causing some things to grow and withering others. In so far as MOTION is a common property, it is identical in both conditions; its apparent difference is due to the objects moved. Enneads VI,3,

Is, then, becoming ill identical with becoming well? As motions they are identical. In what respect, then, do they differ? In their substrates? or is there some other criterion? This question may however be postponed until we come to consider alteration: at present we have to discover what is the constant element in every motion, for only on this basis can we establish the claim of MOTION to be a genus. Enneads VI,3,

But what is the constant element in alteration, in growth and birth and their opposites, in local change? What is that which makes them all motions? Surely it is the fact that in every case the object is never in the same state before and after the motion, that it cannot remain still and in complete inactivity but, so long as the motion is present, is continually urged to take a new condition, never acquiescing in Identity but always courting Difference; deprived of Difference, MOTION perishes. Enneads VI,3,

Thus, Difference may be predicated of MOTION, not merely in the sense that it arises and persists in a difference of conditions, but in the sense of being itself perpetual difference. It follows that Time, as being created by MOTION, also entails perpetual difference: Time is the measure of unceasing MOTION, accompanying its course and, as it were, carried along its stream. Enneads VI,3,

In short, the common basis of all MOTION is the existence of a progression and an urge from potentiality and the potential to actuality and the actual: everything which has any kind of motion whatsoever derives this motion from a pre-existent potentiality within itself of activity or passivity. Enneads VI,3,

The MOTION which acts upon Sensible objects enters from without, and so shakes, drives, rouses and thrusts its participants that they may neither rest nor preserve their identity – and all to the end that they may be caught into that restlessness, that flustering excitability which is but an image of Life. Enneads VI,3,

We must avoid identifying MOTION with the objects moved: by walking we do not mean the feet but the activity springing from a potentiality in the feet. Since the potentiality is invisible, we see of necessity only the active feet – that is to say, not feet simply, as would be the case if they were at rest, but something besides feet, something invisible but indirectly seen as an accompaniment by the fact that we observe the feet to be in ever-changing positions and no longer at rest. We infer alteration, on the other hand, from the qualitative change in the thing altered. Enneads VI,3,

Where, then, does MOTION reside, when there is one thing that moves and another that passes from an inherent potentiality to actuality? In the mover? How then will the moved, the patient, participate in the motion? In the moved? Then why does not MOTION remain in it, once having come? It would seem that MOTION must neither be separated from the active principle nor allowed to reside in it; it must proceed from agent to patient without so inhering in the latter as to be severed from the former, passing from one to the other like a breath of wind. Enneads VI,3,

Now, when the potentiality of MOTION consists in an ability to walk, it may be imagined as thrusting a man forward and causing him to be continually adopting a different position; when it lies in the capacity to heat, it heats; when the potentiality takes hold of Matter and builds up the organism, we have growth; and when another potentiality demolishes the structure, the result is decay, that which has the potentiality of demolition experiencing the decay. Where the birth-giving principle is active, we find birth; where it is impotent and the power to destroy prevails, destruction takes place – not the destruction of what already exists, but that which intervenes upon the road to existence. Enneads VI,3,

Thus, MOTION is conditioned, not only by the objects in which it occurs, but also by its origins and its course, and it is a distinctive mark of MOTION to be always qualified and to take its quality from the moved. Enneads VI,3,

We may now take the various specific types of MOTION, such as locomotion, and once again enquire for each one whether it is not to be divided on the basis of direction, up, down, straight, circular – a question already raised; whether the organic motion should be distinguished from the inorganic – they are clearly not alike; whether, again, organic motions should be subdivided into walking, swimming and flight. Enneads VI,3,

What view are we to take of that which is opposed to MOTION, whether it be Stability or Rest? Are we to consider it as a distinct genus, or to refer it to one of the genera already established? We should, no doubt, be well advised to assign Stability to the Intellectual, and to look in the lower sphere for Rest alone. Enneads VI,3,

Suppose the contrary: we decide that Rest is different from Stability inasmuch as Stability belongs to the utterly immobile, Rest to the stationary which, though of a nature to move, does not move. Now, if Rest means coming to rest, it must be regarded as a motion which has not yet ceased but still continues; but if we suppose it to be incompatible with MOTION, we have first to ask whether there is in the Sensible world anything without motion. Enneads VI,3,

Yet nothing can experience every type of motion; certain motions must be ruled out in order that we may speak of the moving object as existing: may we not, then, say of that which has no locomotion and is at rest as far as pertains to that specific type of motion, simply that it does not move? Rest, accordingly, is the negation of MOTION: in other words, it has no generic status. It is in fact related only to one type of motion, namely, locomotion; it is therefore the negation of this motion that is meant. Enneads VI,3,

But, it may be asked, why not regard MOTION as the negation of Stability? We reply that MOTION does not appear alone; it is accompanied by a force which actualizes its object, forcing it on, as it were, giving it a thousand forms and destroying them all: Rest, on the contrary, comports nothing but the object itself, and signifies merely that the object has no motion. Enneads VI,3,

Why, then, did we not in discussing the Intellectual realm assert that Stability was the negation of MOTION? Because it is not indeed possible to consider Stability as an annulling of MOTION, for when MOTION ceases Stability does not exist, but requires for its own existence the simultaneous existence of MOTION; and what is of a nature to move is not stationary because Stability of that realm is motionless, but because Stability has taken hold of it; in so far as it has MOTION, it will never cease to move: thus, it is stationary under the influence of Stability, and moves under the influence of MOTION. In the lower realm, too, a thing moves in virtue of MOTION, but its Rest is caused by a deficiency; it has been deprived of its due motion. Enneads VI,3,