Soul in its Relation to Nous (VI)

VI. 4- 3
(Armstrong Selections from the Enneads)

[Noûs is fully immanent and transcendent: the (common Hellenistic) idea of ‘presence by powers’ does not really apply to spiritual being: where the ‘power’ is present, the being is present as a whole, but the recipient only receives as much as it is able; the soul is present in the body in the same sort of way.]

Shall we say that it [the All, or Real Being, i.e. Nous] is present, or that it remains by itself, but powers go out from it to all things, and so it is present everywhere? In this way they say that souls are a sort of rays; the All remains established in itself, and the souls are sent out, each to a corresponding living being. Now in things which do not preserve the whole nature of the One Being as it is in itself, only a power of it is present where it is present; yet this certainly does not mean that it is not wholly present, since even in this case it is not cut off from the power which it gave to the other thing: but the recipient was only able to take a certain limited amount, though all was there. Where all its powers are present, it is clearly present itself, though at the same time separate: for if it became the form of a particular thing it would cease to be all and to exist everywhere in itself (though being incidentally the form of something else too).

But since it belongs to no one particular thing, when something wants to belong to it, if it wishes it draws near to it, as much as is possible, but does not become the property of that or any other thing but remains the object of its desire. There is nothing surprising in it thus being present in all things, because it is in none of them in such a way as to belong to them. So perhaps it is not unreasonable to say that the soul has the same sort of relationship of accidental sympathy with the body, if we say that it remains by itself and does not become the property of matter or body, but the whole body is illumined by it in every one of its parts.