In this last case it will be the double task of PHILOSOPHY to direct this lower Soul towards the higher, the agent, and except in so far as the conjunction is absolutely necessary, to sever the agent from the instrument, the body, so that it need not forever have its Act upon or through this inferior. Enneads I,1,. 3
It is in this sense that we read of the Soul: “We saw it as those others saw the sea-god Glaukos.” “And,” reading on, “if we mean to discern the nature of the Soul we must strip it free of all that has gathered about it, must see into the PHILOSOPHY of it, examine with what Existences it has touch and by kinship to what Existences it is what it is.” Enneads I,1,. 12
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,1,II. 1
But can these inferior kinds of virtue exist without Dialectic and PHILOSOPHY? Yes – but imperfectly, inadequately. Enneads I,1,II. 6
And, what are we to think of the new forms of being they introduce – their “Exiles” and “Impressions” and “Repentings”? If all comes to states of the Soul – “Repentance” when it has undergone a change of purpose; “Impressions” when it contemplates not the Authentic Existences but their simulacra – there is nothing here but a jargon invented to make a case for their school: all this terminology is piled up only to conceal their debt to the ancient Greek PHILOSOPHY which taught, clearly and without bombast, the ascent from the cave and the gradual advance of souls to a truer and truer vision. Enneads: II IX. 6
For, in sum, a part of their doctrine comes from Plato; all the novelties through which they seek to establish a PHILOSOPHY of their own have been picked up outside of the truth. Enneads: II IX. 6
But the manner and motive of their teaching have been sufficiently exhibited; and this was the main purpose of the discussion here upon their Spirit-Powers. I leave it to yourselves to read the books and examine the rest of the doctrine: you will note all through how our form of PHILOSOPHY inculcates simplicity of character and honest thinking in addition to all other good qualities, how it cultivates reverence and not arrogant self-assertion, how its boldness is balanced by reason, by careful proof, by cautious progression, by the utmost circumspection – and you will compare those other systems to one proceeding by this method. You will find that the tenets of their school have been huddled together under a very different plan: they do not deserve any further examination here. Enneads: II IX. 14
There is, of course, no difference between Being and Everlasting Being; just as there is none between a philosopher and a true philosopher: the attribute “true” came into use because there arose what masqueraded as PHILOSOPHY; and for similar reasons “everlasting” was adjoined to “Being,” and “Being” to “everlasting,” and we have (the tautology of) “Everlasting Being.” We must take this “Everlasting” as expressing no more than Authentic Being: it is merely a partial expression of a potency which ignores all interval or term and can look forward to nothing by way of addition to the All which it possesses. The Principle of which this is the statement will be the All-Existent, and, as being all, can have no failing or deficiency, cannot be at some one point complete and at some other lacking. Enneads: III VII. 6
We have, then, to attempt to show: firstly, how acts implying memory in the heavenly bodies are to be reconciled with our system as distinguished from those others which allow them memory as a matter of course; secondly, what vindication of those gods of the heavenly spheres is possible in the matter of seemingly anomalous acts – a question which PHILOSOPHY cannot ignore – then too, since the charge goes so far, we must ask whether credence is to be given to those who hold that the entire heavenly system can be put under spell by man’s skill and audacity: our discussion will also deal with the spirit-beings and how they may be thought to minister to these ends – unless indeed the part played by the Celestials prove to be settled by the decision upon the first questions. Enneads: IV IV. 30
Thus we rob it of its very being as The Absolute Good if we ascribe anything to it, existence or intellect or goodness. The only way is to make every denial and no assertion, to feign no quality or content there but to permit only the “It is” in which we pretend to no affirmation of non-existent attribute: there is an ignorant praise which, missing the true description, drags in qualities beneath the real worth and so abases; PHILOSOPHY must guard against attaching to the Supreme what is later and lower: moving above all that order, it is the cause and source of all these, and is none of them. Enneads: V V. 13
Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its concerns their first and their last; the sweet and the bitter of sense are their good and evil; they feel they have done all if they live along pursuing the one and barring the doors to the other. And those of them that pretend to reasoning have adopted this as their PHILOSOPHY; they are like the heavier birds which have incorporated much from the earth and are so weighted down that they cannot fly high for all the wings Nature has given them. Enneads: V IX. 1
Geometry, the science of the Intellectual entities, holds place There: so, too, PHILOSOPHY, whose high concern is Being. Enneads: V IX. 11
This PHILOSOPHY began by identifying the Real with body; then, viewing with apprehension the transmutations of bodies, decided that Reality was that which is permanent beneath the superficial changes – which is much as if one regarded space as having more title to Reality than the bodies within it, on the principle that space does not perish with them. They found a permanent in space, but it was a fault to take mere permanence as in itself a sufficient definition of the Real; the right method would have been to consider what properties must characterize Reality, by the presence of which properties it has also that of unfailing permanence. Thus if a shadow had permanence, accompanying an object through every change, that would not make it more real than the object itself. The sensible universe, as including the Substrate and a multitude of attributes, will thus have more claim to be Reality entire than has any one of its component entities (such as Matter): and if the sensible were in very truth the whole of Reality, Matter, the mere base and not the total, could not be that whole. Enneads: VI I. 28
Soul must see in its own way; this is by coalescence, unification; but in seeking thus to know the Unity it is prevented by that very unification from recognising that it has found; it cannot distinguish itself from the object of this intuition. Nonetheless, this is our one resource if our PHILOSOPHY is to give us knowledge of The Unity. Enneads: VI IX. 3