Plotino – Tratado 2,11 (IV, 7, 11) — A alma é imortal, indestrutível, indivisível e imutável (1)

11 Tratándose de semejante ser, ¿quién que sea cuerdo cuestionaría su inmortalidad? Porque en él y nacida de él está presente una vida que no puede perecer. ¿Cómo podría perecer si no es una vida adquirida y tampoco está en el alma del mismo modo que el calor está presente en el fuego?. Quiero decir, no que el calor sea adventicio al fuego, sino que, aunque no lo es al fuego, sí lo es a la materia que subyace al fuego, pues por esa vía se disuelve el fuego. El alma, en cambio, no posee la vida de tal forma que exista una materia como sustrato y que el advenimiento de vida sobre la materia muestre como resultado el alma. Porque o la vida es una sustancia y esta tal sustancia está viva por sí misma —que es justo lo que buscamos: el alma—, y reconocen que ésta es una cosa inmortal, o la descompondrán como compuesta y la volverán a descomponer hasta que lleguen a algo inmortal que se mueva por sí mismo, y a esto no le es lícito recibir un destino de muerte, o, si suponen que la vida es una modalidad advenida a la materia, se verán forzados a reconocer que el principio mismo de donde le ha venido a la materia esa modalidad es inmortal por no ser susceptible de la propiedad contraria a la que confiere. En todo caso, existe una naturaleza unitaria que vive en acto.

[XI] Quel homme sensé, après avoir considéré ainsi la nature de l’âme, pourrait encore douter de l’immortalité d’un principe qui ne tient la vie que de lui-même et qui ne peut la perdre? Comment l’âme perdrait-elle la vie, puisqu’elle ne l’a pas empruntée d’ailleurs, qu’elle ne la possède pas comme le feu possède la chaleur? (car, sans être un accident du feu, la chaleur est cependant un accident de sa matière; aussi le feu périt-il.) Mais, dans l’âme, la vie n’est pas un accident qui vienne s’ajouter à un sujet matériel pour constituer l’âme. En effet, de deux choses l’une: ou la vie est une essence, et une essence de cette nature est vivante par elle-même; alors, cette essence est l’âme que nous cher- 472 chons, et on ne peut lui refuser l’immortalité ; ou l’âme est composée, et il faut la décomposer jusqu’à ce qu’on arrive à quelque chose qui soit immortel et se meuve par soi-même; alors un pareil principe ne saurait être soumis à la mort. Enfin, si l’on dit que la vie n’est qu’une modification accidentelle de la matière (πάθος ἐπακτὸν τῇ ὕλῃ), on est forcé de reconnaître que le principe qui a donné à la matière cette modification est immortel et incapable d’admettre rien de contraire à ce qu’il communique [c.-à-d. à la vie] (86) ; or, il n’y a qu’une seule nature qui possède la vie en acte.

11. (16). What sensible man, after having thus considered the nature of the soul, could still doubt of the immortality of a principle which derives life from naught but itself, and which cannot lose it? How could the soul lose life, since she did not borrow it from elsewhere, and since she does not possess it as fire possesses heat ? For, without being an accident of fire, the heat, nevertheless, is an accident of its matter; for fire can perish. But, in the soul, life is not an accident that comes to add itself to a material subject to constitute a soul. In fact, there is here an alternative: either life is a genuine “being,” which is alive by itself; in which case this “being” is the soul that we are seeking to discover, and immortality cannot be refused her; or the soul is a composite, and she must be decomposed until we arrive at something immortal which moves by itself; and such a principle could not be subject to death. Further, when (Stoics) say that life is only an accidental modification of matter, they are thereby forced to acknowledge that the principle that imparted this modification to matter is immortal, and incapable of admitting anything contrary to what it communicates (that is, life, as said Plato, in his Phaedo), but there is only a single nature that possesses life in actualization.

XI. Who, therefore, endued with intellect will doubt that a thing of this kind is not immortal, to which indestructible life is present from itself? For how is it possible it should perish, since it is not adventitious, and is not possessed in the same way as heat is present with fire ? I do not mean by this, that heat is adventitious to fire, but that it is so to the subject matter of fire, though it is not to fire itself. For through this fire is dissolved. Soul, however, does not possess life in such a way, as that matter is the subject of it, but life acceding, demonstrates the presence of soul. For either life is essence, and is an essence of such a kind as to live from itself, which is soul, the object of our investigation, and this they acknowledge to be immortal; or they must analyze it as a composite. This, also, they must analyze, till they arrive at that which is immortal, and moved from itself, and to which it is not lawful to receive the destiny of death. Or if they say that life is a passion adventitious to matter, they are compelled to acknowledge that nature to be immortal from which this passion was imparted to matter, and which is incapable of receiving the contrary to that which it imparts. For it is one nature living in energy.

11. (16) What intelligent mind can doubt the immortality of such a value, one in which there is a life self-springing and therefore not to be destroyed?

This is at any rate a life not imported from without, not present in the mode of the heat in fire – for if heat is characteristic of the fire proper, it certainly is adventitious to the Matter underlying the fire; or fire, too, would be everlasting – it is not in any such mode that the soul has life: this is no case of a Matter underlying and a life brought into that Matter and making it into soul [as heat comes into matter and makes it fire].

Either life is Essential Reality, and therefore self-living – the very thing we have been seeking – and undeniably immortal: or it, too, is a compound and must be traced back through all the constituents until an immortal substance is reached, something deriving movement from itself, and therefore debarred from accepting death.

Even supposing life could be described as a condition imposed upon Matter, still the source from which this condition entered the Matter must necessarily be admitted to be immortal simply by being unable to take into itself the opposite of the life which it conveys.

Of course, life is no such mere condition, but an independent principle, effectively living.