Plotino – Tratado 10,5 (V, 1, 5) — Quem engendrou o Intelecto e as realidades inteligíveis?

5. Tal es este dios múltiple, que existe en el alma unida estrechamente a estas regiones, y siempre que ella no quiera abandonarlas ¹. Próxima como está a la Inteligencia y formando unidad con ella, trata naturalmente de preguntarse: ¿quién ha engendrado la Inteligencia y cuál es el término simple anterior a ella, la causa de su ser y la razón de su multiplicidad, a la que se debe el número? Porque el número no es lo primero, sino que la unidad precede a la dualidad, ya que ésta, como proveniente de la unidad, se encuentra limitada por ella, siendo como es por sí misma verdaderamente ilimitada. Nace el número, pues, cuando la dualidad se ve limitada; pero con el número surge también el ser. El alma, por su parte, es número, ya que los términos primeros de que hablamos ni son masas ni magnitudes, cosas todas ellas realmente macizas y posteriores, al amparo de cuya existencia cabe pensar en la sensación. Lo que tiene de valor en la simiente no es, desde luego, la humedad sino aquello que no se ve, esto es, un número y una razón seminal. Lo que llamamos número y dualidad indefinida en la región de los seres inteligibles son razones y una inteligencia. Primero se da la dualidad indefinida que viene a ser recibida por el sustrato de los inteligibles; luego, aparece el número, que nace de esta dualidad y del Uno, a la manera de una forma. Porque todas las cosas son informadas por formas nacidas en el número. De aquí que, si aquélla recibe en un sentido la forma del Uno, en otro también recibe la forma del Número.

Debemos considerar la Inteligencia como una visión en acto. Porque el pensamiento es una visión en ejercicio y su unidad comprende, en efecto, dos cosas.

[5] Ainsi, l’âme humaine est pleine de cette Divinité [de l’Intelligence] ; elle y est rattachée par ces essences, si elle ne s’éloigne pas d’elle. Elle approche d’elle, et, ramenée à l’unité, elle se demande : Qui a engendré cette Divinité? — Cest Celui qui est simple, qui est antérieur à toute multiplicité, qui donne à l’Intelligence son existence et sa multiplicité, qui produit le Nombre par conséquent : car le Nombre n’est pas une chose primitive; l’Un est antérieur à la Dyade. Celle-ci ne tient que le second rang : elle est engendrée et définie par l’Un, indéterminée qu’elle est par elle-même. Une fois définie, elle est nombre en tant qu’elle est essence. Car [à ce titre] l’Âme aussi est un nombre (24).

D’ailleurs, toute chose qui est une masse ou une grandeur ne saurait occuper le premier rang dans la nature; il faut regarder comme inférieurs ces objets grossiers que la sensation prend pour des êtres (25). Dans les semences, ce n’est pas l’élément humide qu’il faut estimer, mais le principe invisible, le nombre et la raison [séminale]. Nous nommons ici nombre et dyade les raisons [idées] et l’Intelligence. La dyade est indéterminée en tant qu’elle joue le rôle de substratum [par rapport à l’Un]. Le nombre qui dérive de la dyade et de l’Un constitue toute espèce d’idée (εἶδος), en sorte que l’Intelligence a une forme qui est déterminée par les idées engendrées dans son sein. Elle tient sa forme, en une façon de l’Un, et en une autre façon, d’elle-même, semblable à la vue qui est en acte. La pensée, c’est la vue en acte, et ces deux choses [la faculté et l’acte] n’en font qu’une.

THE SOUL AS NUMBER CONNECTED WITH INTELLIGENCE.

5. Thus the human soul is full of this divinity (of Intelligence); she is connected therewith by these (categories), unless the soul (purposely) withdraws from (that intelligence). The Soul approaches Intelligence, and thus having been unified, the Soul wonders, ‘Who has begotten this unity?’ It must be He who is simple, who is prior to all multiplicity, who imparts to Intelligence its existence and manifoldness, and who consequently produces number. Number, indeed, is not something primitive; for the One is prior to the “pair.” The latter ranks only second, being begotten and defined by unity, by itself being indefinite. As soon as it is defined, it is a number in so far as it is a “being”; for these are the grounds on which the Soul also is a number.

THOUGHT IS ACTUALIZATION OF SIGHT. AND BOTH FORM BUT ONE THING.

Besides everything that is a mass or a magnitude could not occupy the first rank in nature; those gross objects which are by sensation considered beings must be ranked as inferior. In seeds, it is not the moist element that should be valued, but the invisible principle, number, and the (seminal) reason. Number and “pair” are only names for the reasons (ideas) and intelligence. The “pair” is indeterminate so far as it plays the part of substrate (in respect to unity). The number that is derived from the pair, and the one, constitute every kind of form, so that Intelligence has a shape which is determined by the ideas begotten within it. Its shape is derived in one respect from the one, and in another respect, from itself, just like actualized sight. Thought, indeed, is actualized sight, and both these entities (the faculty and the actualization) form but one.

V. This exuberant God, therefore, exists in the soul which is here, being conjoined to him by things of this kind, unless it wishes to depart from him. Approaching therefore to, and as it were becoming one with him, it enquires as follows : Who is he that, being simple and prior to a multitude of this kind, generated this God ? Who is the cause of his existence, and of his being exuberant, and by whom number was produced ? For number is not the first of things ; since the one is prior to the duad. But the duad is the second thing, and being generated by the one, is defined by it. The duad, however, is of itself indefinite. But when it is defined, it is now number. And it is number as essence. Soul also is number. For neither corporeal masses nor magnitudes are the first of things. For these gross substance which sense fancies to be beings, are things of a posterior nature. Nor is the moisture which is in seeds honourable, but that contained in them, which is not visible. But this is number and reason [or a productive principle]. What are said therefore to be number and the duad in the intelligible world, are reasons and intellect. But the duad indeed is indefinite, when it is assumed as analogous to a subject. Number, however, which proceeds from it and the one, is each form of things ; intellect being as it were formed by the species of things which are generated it it. But it is formed in one manner from the one, and in another from itself, in the same manner as sight which is in energy. For intelligence is sight perceiving, both being one.

5. As a manifold, then, this God, the Intellectual-Principle, exists within the Soul here, the Soul which once for all stands linked a member of the divine, unless by a deliberate apostasy.

Bringing itself close to the divine Intellect, becoming, as it were, one with this, it seeks still further: What Being, now, has engendered this God, what is the Simplex preceding this multiple; what the cause at once of its existence and of its existing as a manifold; what the source of this Number, this Quantity?

Number, Quantity, is not primal: obviously before even duality, there must stand the unity.

The Dyad is a secondary; deriving from unity, it finds in unity the determinant needed by its native indetermination: once there is any determination, there is Number, in the sense, of course, of the real [the archetypal] Number. And the soul is such a number or quantity. For the Primals are not masses or magnitudes; all of that gross order is later, real only to the sense-thought; even in seed the effective reality is not the moist substance but the unseen – that is to say Number [as the determinant of individual being] and the Reason-Principle [of the product to be].

Thus by what we call the Number and the Dyad of that higher realm, we mean Reason Principles and the Intellectual-Principle: but while the Dyad is, as regards that sphere, undetermined – representing, as it were, the underly [or Matter] of The One – the later Number [or Quantity] – that which rises from the Dyad [Intellectual-Principle] and The One – is not Matter to the later existents but is their forming-Idea, for all of them take shape, so to speak, from the ideas rising within this. The determination of the Dyad is brought about partly from its object – The One – and partly from itself, as is the case with all vision in the act of sight: intellection [the Act of the Dyad] is vision occupied upon The One.