VI. 7. 12
(Armstrong Selection and Translation from the Enneads)
(The world of Noûs is the pattern of the material universe here below, and everything that is here is also There, but all alive, united in a rich fullness of eternal life.)
Or, again, let us put it this way. Since we say that this universe here is modelled on the world of Noûs, every living thing must be There first; if the being of Noûs is complete it must be everything. Heaven There must be a living thing, and so not bare of stars (it is they which are really called heaven here, and the essence of heaven is starriness). There too, clearly, is earth, not barren but far fuller of life, and in it are all living beings which are called land animals here, and all plants clearly too, rooted in life. Sea too is There, and all water, in a flow and life which abides, and all the living beings in water; the nature of air is part of the universe There, and the creatures of air are There correspondingly. Must not the things in a living medium be alive, in which there are living things even here? How could it be possible for any living creature not to be There? For just as each of the great parts of the universe is There, so it must be with the nature of the living beings in them. In just the same way in which heaven is There, the living beings in heaven are There; and it is impossible for them not to be, or the heaven itself would not be There. So he who inquires whence the living things come, is inquiring whence the heaven There comes; and this amounts to asking the origin of living reality There; and this is the same as asking whence comes life, and universal life and universal Soul and universal Noûs, in that world There where there is no poverty or impotence, but everything is filled full of life, boiling with life. Things There flow in a way from a single source, not like one particular breath or warmth, but as if there were a single quality containing in itself and preserving all qualities, sweet taste and smell and the quality of wine with all other flavours, visions of colours and all that touch perceives, all too that hearing hears, all tunes and every rhythm.