IV. 4. 36
(Armstrong Selection and Translation from the Enneads)
(The immense variety of the visible universe, which is a living whole made up of parts all of which have life in them, even if we do not perceive it.)
The All is full of the richest variety; all logoi are present in it and an unbounded store of varied powers. It is like what they say about man, that the eye and each of the bones has its own distinctive power, the bones of the hand one power and the toe-bone another; there is no part which has not a power, and one different from every other — but we know nothing about it, unless we have studied this sort of subject. The All is like this, but even more so, because the parts of our bodies with their powers are only traces of the parts and powers of the universe. In the All there is an indescribably wonderful variety of powers, especially in the bodies which move through the heavens. For it did not have to come to be an ordered universe like a soulless house, even if a large and complex one, made of materials easy to reckon up according to kind, stones and timber, perhaps, and other things of the sort; but it exists, all awake and alive differently in different parts, and nothing can exist which does not belong to it. This then solves the difficulty of how there can be anything without soul in an ensouled living being: for this account explains that different things in the Whole live in different ways, but we do not say that anything is alive which does not move itself perceptibly: but each thing of this sort has a hidden life; and the thing which is perceptibly alive is composed of parts which are not perceptibly alive but contribute wonderful powers to the life of a living thing of this kind. Man would not have been moved to such great achievements if the powers in himself from which he started had been without soul, nor would the All live as it does if each particular thing in it did not live its own life — even if the All does not exercise deliberate choice. For it acts without need of deliberate choice; it is of older birth than choice.