V. 7. 1
(Armstrong Selection and Translation from the Enneads)
(There are Forms of individuals; our personalities have eternal principles in the intelligible world. Arguments drawn from reincarnation and the Stoic doctrine of eternal recurrence do not serve to disprove this. We are made individuals by form, not matter. We must not be afraid of the infinity which this introduces into the intelligible world, as it is an infinity of power in an indivisible unity.)
Is there an Idea of each individual? Yes, if I and each one of us have a way of ascent and return to the intelligible, the principle of each of us is There. If Socrates and the soul of Socrates always exists, there will be an absolute Socrates, as we say, There, according to which his soul will have individuality There as well as here.
But suppose Socrates does not always exist, but the soul which was formerly Socrates becomes different people at different times, like Pythagoras or someone else, then there will not be a particular Socrates in the intelligible world. Yes, but if the soul of each individual possesses the logoi of all the individuals which it animates in succession, then all will exist There: and we do say that each soul possesses all the logoi in the whole universe. If then the universe possesses the logoi not only of man but of all individual animals, so does the soul. Then the number of logoi in it will be infinite, unless the universe returns on itself in regular periods: this will put a limit to the infinity of logoi, because the same things in this case recur. Well, then, if in this way the things which come into being are in all the periods together more numerous than their models, why should there have to be logoi and models of all the things which come into being in one period? One man as model would do for all men, just as souls limited in number produce an infinity of men (in successive periods). No, there cannot be the same logos for different individuals, and one man will not serve as model for several men differing from each other not only by reason of their matter but with a vast number of differences of form. Men are not related to their Form as portraits of Socrates are to their original; their different structures must result from different logoi. The whole revolution of the universe contains all the logoi, and when it repeats itself it produces the same things again according to the same logoi. We ought not to be afraid of the infinity which this introduces into the intelligible world; for it is all in an indivisible unity and, we may say, comes forth when it acts.