These considerations oblige us to state the Logos [the Reason-Principle of the Universe] once again, and more clearly, and to justify its nature.
This Reason-Principle, then – let us dare the definition in the hope of conveying the truth – this Logos is not the Intellectual Principle unmingled, not the Absolute Divine Intellect; nor does it descend from the pure Soul alone; it is a dependent of that Soul while, in a sense, it is a radiation from both those divine Hypostases; the Intellectual Principle and the Soul – the Soul as conditioned by the Intellectual Principle engender this Logos which is a Life holding restfully a certain measure of Reason.
But this Reason-Principle which emanates from the complete unity, divine Mind, and the complete unity Life [= Soul] – is neither a uniate complete Life nor a uniate complete divine Mind, nor does it give itself whole and all-including to its subject. [By an imperfect communication] it sets up a conflict of part against part: it produces imperfect things and so engenders and maintains war and attack, and thus its unity can be that only of a sum-total not of a thing undivided. At war with itself in the parts which it now exhibits, it has the unity, or harmony, of a drama torn with struggle. The drama, of course, brings the conflicting elements to one final harmony, weaving the entire story of the clashing characters into one thing; while in the Logos the conflict of the divergent elements rises within the one element, the Reason-Principle: the comparison therefore is rather with a harmony emerging directly from the conflicting elements themselves, and the question becomes what introduces clashing elements among these Reason-Principles. Enneads: III II. 16