Plotino – Tratado 2,12 (IV, 7, 12) — A alma é imortal, indestrutível, indivisível e imutável (2)

[XII] Soutiendra-t-on que toute âme est périssable (87)? Dans ce cas, tout devrait être détruit depuis longtemps. Dira-t-on que notre âme est mortelle, tandis que l’Âme universelle est immortelle ? Qu’on rende alors raison de cette différence. Chacune des deux est un principe de mouvement, vit par elle-même, saisit les mêmes objets par la même faculté, soit qu’elle pense les choses contenues dans le ciel ou supérieures au ciel, soit qu’elle considère l’essence de chaque être et qu’elle remonte jusqu’au premier principe. Puisque notre âme pense les essences absolues soit par les notions qu’elle en trouve en elle-même, soit par la réminiscence, évidemment elle est antérieure au corps; possédant des connaissances éternelles, elle doit être elle-même éternelle. Tout ce qui se dissout, n’existant que par sa composition, peut naturellement se dissoudre de la même manière qu’il est composé. Mais l’âme est un acte un, simple, dont l’essence est la vie ; elle ne peut donc périr de cette manière. Périra-t-elle en se divisant en une foule de parties ? Mais, comme nous l’avons démontré, l’âme n’est ni une masse, ni une quantité. Périra-t-elle en s’altérant? L’altération, en détruisant une chose, lui enlève sa forme et lui laisse sa matière; c’est donc le propre d’un composé. Par conséquent, puisque l’âme ne peut périr d’aucune de ces façons, elle est impérissable.

THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY IN WHICH SOUL COULD PERISH.

12. (17). (The Stoics), indeed, claim that every soul is perishable. In this case, everything should long since have been destroyed. Others might say that our soul were mortal, while the universal Soul were immortal. On them, however, is the burden of proof of a difference between the individual and universal souls. Both of them, indeed, are a principle of movement; both live by themselves; both grasp the same object by the same faculty, either by thinking the things contained in heaven, or by considering the nature (“being”) of each being, ascending unto the first principle. Since our soul thinks absolute essences either by the notions she finds within herself, or by reminiscence, she evidently is prior to the body. Possessing knowledge of eternal entities, she herself must be eternal. All that dissolves, existing only by its compositeness, can naturally dissolve in the same manner that it became composite. But the soul is a single, simple actualization, whose essence is life; not in this manner therefore can the soul perish. Neither could the soul perish by division into a number of parts; for, as we have shown, the soul is neither a mass nor a quantity. As little could the soul perish by alteration; for when alteration destroys anything, it may remove its form, but leaves its matter; alteration, therefore, is a characteristic of something composite. Consequently as the soul cannot perish in any of these ways, she is imperishable.

XII. Farther still, if they say that every soul is corruptible, it would be requisite that all things should have long since perished. But if they assert that one soul is corruptible, and another not, as for instance, that the soul of the universe is immortal, but ours not, it is necessary that they should assign the cause of this difference. For each is the cause of motion, and each lives from itself. Each, likewise, comes into contact with the same things by the same power, intellectually perceiving the natures in the heavens, and also those that are beyond the heavens, investigating everything which has an essential subsistence, and ascending as far as to the first principle of things. To which may be added, that it is evident the soul gave being to itself prior to the body, from its ability of apprehending what each thing is, by itself, from its own inherent spectacles, and from reminiscence. And from its employing eternal sciences, it is manifest that it is itself perpetual. Besides, since everything which can be dissolved receives composition, hence, so far as a thing is a composite, it is naturally adapted to be dissolved. But soul being one simple energy, and a nature characterized by life, cannot be corrupted as a composite. Will it, therefore, through being divided and distributed into minute parts, perish ? Soul, however, is not, as we have demonstrated, a certain bulk or quantity. May it not, therefore, through being changed in quality, be corrupted ? Change in quality however which corrupts takes away form, but leaves the subject matter. But this is the passion of a composite. Hence, if it is not possible for the soul to be corrupted according to any of these modes, it is necessarily incorruptible.

12. (17) A further consideration is that if every soul is to be held dissoluble the universe must long since have ceased to be: if it is pretended that one kind of soul, our own for example, is mortal, and another, that of the All, let us suppose, is immortal, we demand to know the reason of the difference alleged.

Each is a principle of motion, each is self-living, each touches the same sphere by the same tentacles, each has intellection of the celestial order and of the super-celestial, each is seeking to win to what has essential being, each is moving upwards to the primal source.

Again: the soul’s understanding of the Absolute Forms by means of the visions stored up in it is effected within itself; such perception is reminiscence; the soul then must have its being before embodiment, and drawing on an eternal science, must itself be eternal.

Every dissoluble entity, that has come to be by way of groupment, must in the nature of things be broken apart by that very mode which brought it together: but the soul is one and simplex, living not in the sense of potential reception of life but by its own energy; and this can be no cause of dissolution.

But, we will be told, it tends to destruction by having been divided (in the body) and so becoming fragmentary.

No: the soul, as we have shown, is not a mass, not a quantity.

May not it change and so come to destruction?

No: the change that destroys annuls the form but leaves the underlying substance: and that could not happen to anything except a compound.

If it can be destroyed in no such ways, it is necessarily indestructible.