Plotino – Tratado 27,5 (IV, 3, 5) — Alma de um e de outro

5. Pero, ¿cómo hablar entonces de tu alma y del alma de otro? ¿Acaso el alma se adscribe a un ser por su parte inferior y a otro ser por su parte superior? Si así fuese, Sócrates existiría mientras el alma de Sócrates permaneciese en su cuerpo, pero quedaría destruido una vez que llegase a la región mejor. Ahora bien, ninguno de los seres puede ser destruido y, cuando menos, eso no ocurrirá en el mundo inteligible con las inteligencias, porque éstas no se hallan repartidas en cuerpos. Si cada una de ellas permanece con su carácter propio, es cierto también que todas y cada una presentan el rasgo común de ser. En cuanto a las almas, digamos que se hallan adheridas a una inteligencia y que son, además, las razones de las inteligencias, y aun algo más en su pleno desenvolvimiento. Las almas nacen de las inteligencias al modo como lo que es mucho nace de lo que es poco. Todas ellas mantienen el contacto con su origen y se corresponden una a una con un inteligible menos divisible; mas, aunque hayan querido dividirse, no han podido alcanzar la totalidad de este fin, conservando así tanto la identidad como la diferencia. Cada alma, por tanto, viene a subsistir como un solo ser, y todas reunidas constituyen también un solo ser.

(Diremos así que el punto capital de la cuestión es el siguiente: todas las almas provienen de una sola alma y, al igual que las inteligencias, son divisibles y no divisibles. El alma que permanece es la razón una de la inteligencia, de la cual provienen las razones particulares e inmateriales, como acontece en el mundo inteligible).

V. Mais [demandera-t-on], comment l’Âme universelle peut-elle être à la fois ton âme, l’âme de celui-ci, l’âme de celui-là? Sera-t-elle l’âme de celui-ci par sa partie inférieure, l’âme de celui-là par sa partie supérieure [Plotin a déjà réfuté cette hypothèse précédemment, dans le [§ 3, en montrant que les âmes particulières ne sont pas des fonctions diverses de l’Âme universelle, fonctions qui n’auraient pas une existence distincte de celle de l’Âme universelle, et qui, par conséquent, périraient avec le corps, comme Ficin l’explique dans son Commentaire.]]?

Professer une pareille doctrine, ce serait admettre que l’âme de Socrate vivrait tant qu’elle serait dans un corps, tandis qu’elle serait anéantie [en allant se perdre dans le sein de l’Âme universelle] au moment même où [par suite de sa séparation d’avec le corps] elle se trouverait dans ce qu’il y a de meilleur [dans le monde intelligible]. ¹ Non : nul des êtres véritables ne périt. Les intelligences elles-mêmes ne se perdent pas là-haut [dans l’Intelligence divine] parce qu’elles n’y sont pas divisées à la manière des corps, et qu’elles y subsistent chacune avec leur caractère propre, joignant à leur différence cette identité qui constitue l’être. Étant placées au-dessous des intelligences particulières auxquelles elles sont suspendues, les âmes particulières sont les raisons [nées] des intelligences, sont des intelligences plus développées ; de peu multiples, elles deviennent très multiples, tout en restant unies aux essences peu multiples ; comme elles tendent à introduire la séparation dans ces essences moins divisibles [les intelligences], et qu’elles ne peuvent cependant arriver aux dernières limites de la division, elles conservent à la fois leur identité et leur différence : chacune demeure une, et toutes ensemble forment une unité.

Nous avons ainsi établi déjà le point important de la discussion, savoir que toutes les âmes procèdent d’une seule Âme, que d’une elles deviennent multiples, comme cela a lieu pour les intelligences, divisées de la même façon et en même temps indivises. L’Âme qui demeure dans le monde intelligible est la Raison une et indivisible [née] de l’Intelligence, et de cette Âme procèdent les raisons particulières et immatérielles, de la même manière que là-haut [les intelligences particulières procèdent de l’Intelligence une et absolue].

SOULS RETAIN BOTH THEIR UNITY AND DIFFERENCES ON DIFFERENT LEVELS.

5. How could the universal Soul simultaneously be the soul of yourself and of other persons ? Might she be the soul of one person by her lower strata, and that of somebody else by her higher strata ? To teach such a doctrine would be equivalent to asserting that the soul of Socrates would be alive while being in a certain body, while she would be annihilated (by losing herself within the universal Soul) at the very moment when (as a result of separation of the body) she had come into what was best (in the intelligible world). No, none of the true beings perishes. Not even the intelligences lose themselves up there (in the divine Intellignce), because they are not divided as are bodies, and each subsists in her own characteristics, to their differences joining that identity which constitutes “being.” Being located below the individual intelligences to which they are attached, individual souls are the “reasons” (born) of the intelligences, or more developed intelligences; from being but slightly manifold, they become very much so, while remaining in communion with the slightly manifold beings. As however they tend to introduce separation in these less divisible beings (that is, intelligences), and as nevertheless they cannot attain the last limits of division, they simultaneously preserve both their identity and difference. Each one remains single, and all together form a unity.

SOULS DEVELOP MANIFOLDNESS JUST AS INTELLIGENCE DOES.

We have thus succeeded in establishing the most important point of the discussion, namely, that all souls proceed from a single Soul, that from being one they become manifold, as is the case with the intelligences, divided in the same way, and similarly undivided. The Soul that dwells in the intelligible world is the one and indivisible reason (born) of intelligence, and from this Soul proceed the particular immaterial “reasons,” in the same manner as on high (the individual intelligences proceed from the one and absolute Intelligence).

V. How, therefore, any longer will this be your soul, that the soul of some other person, and that again of another? Shall we say that it is the soul of this person according to its inferior part, but not of this according to its supreme part, but of some other person ? Thus, however, Socrates will indeed exist, when the soul of Socrates is in body; but he will perish when he is especially in the most excellent condition [i.e. when he is in the intelligible world]. But no being perishes, since the intellects which are in the intelligible do not perish, because they are not corporeally distributed into one thing, but each remains possessing in difference a sameness of subsistence, in which its very being consists. After this manner, therefore, souls also being successively suspended according to each intellect, being likewise reasons of intellects, though more evolved than an intellectual essence, and becoming as it were much from that which is few, and being in contact with it, they are now willing to be divided by each of those more impartible essences, yet are not able to proceed to the very extremity of division. For they preserve their sameness and difference, and each remains one, and at the same time all are one. “We have, however, summarily shown, that all souls are from one soul, and that all of them are divisible and at the same time indivisible. The soul, also, which abides [on high], is the one reason of intellect, and from this soul partial and immaterial reasons are derived, in the same manner as there [i.e. in the same manner as partial intellects are derived from one intellect which ranks as a whole].

5. But what place is left for the particular souls, yours and mine and another’s?

May we suppose the Soul to be appropriated on the lower ranges to some individual, but to belong on the higher to that other sphere?

At this there would be a Socrates as long as Socrates’ soul remained in body; but Socrates ceases to exist, precisely on attainment of the highest.

Now nothing of Real Being is ever annulled.

In the Supreme, the Intellectual-Principles are not annulled, for in their differentiation there is no bodily partition, no passing of each separate phase into a distinct unity; every such phase remains in full possession of that identical being. It is exactly so with the souls.

By their succession they are linked to the several Intellectual-Principles, for they are the expression, the Logos, of the Intellectual-Principles, of which they are the unfolding; brevity has opened out to multiplicity; by that point of their being which least belongs to the partial order, they are attached each to its own Intellectual original: they have already chosen the way of division; but to the extreme they cannot go; thus they keep, at once, identification and difference; each soul is permanently a unity [a self] and yet all are, in their total, one being.

Thus the gist of the matter is established: one soul the source of all; those others, as a many founded in that one, are, on the analogy of the Intellectual-Principle, at once divided and undivided; that Soul which abides in the Supreme is the one expression or Logos of the Intellectual-Principle, and from it spring other Reason-Principles, partial but immaterial, exactly as in the differentiation of the Supreme.