Plotino – Tratado 51,4 (I, 8, 4) — Os males segundos: males dos corpos e vícios da alma

4 En cambio, la naturaleza de los cuerpos, por cuanto participa de materia, será un mal no primario. Porque, eso sí, los cuerpos poseen una forma inauténtica, están privados de vida, se destruyen unos a otros, es desordenado el movimiento que originan, son impedimento para el alma — para la actividad propia del alma — y eluden la sustancia, fluyendo como están constantemente: son un mal de segundo orden. Pero el alma no es mala por sí misma, y tampoco es mala toda ella. — ¿Pues cuál es la mala?

La que (Platón) caracteriza diciendo: «una vez que hemos reducido a servidumbre aquella parte del alma en la que el vicio halla su sede natural», dando a entender que es la especie irracional del alma la que es receptora del mal, de sinmedida, de exceso y defecto, de los cuales provienen la intemperancia, la cobardía y los vicios restantes del alma, afecciones involuntarias implantadoras de opiniones falsas y de la creencia de que las cosas que rehuye son malas y las que persigue buenas.

Pero ¿cuál es la causa de este vicio? ¿Y cómo reducirlo a aquel principio y a aquella causa?

Es que, en primer lugar, el alma de esa especie no está fuera de la materia ni existe por sí misma.

Está, pues, mezclada de sinmedida y es impartícipe de la forma que pone orden y reduce a medida, porque está entremezclada con un cuerpo dotado de materia. En segundo lugar, aun la parte racional, caso de que sufra daño, se ve impedida de ver por causa de las pasiones y porque está entenebrecida por la materia e inclinada a la materia y, en suma, porque pone la vista no en la Esencia, sino en el devenir, cuyo principio es la naturaleza de la materia, la cual es tan mala que incluso a quien no está todavía sumido en ella, con sólo que haya posado su mirada en ella, lo infesta de su propio mal. Porque como no participa en absoluto en el bien, como es privación de bien y pura carencia, vuelve semejante a sí a todo aquello que de cualquier modo tome contacto con ella.

Así, pues, el alma que es perfecta y se inclina a la inteligencia, permanece siempre pura y vuelta de espaldas a la materia, y ni mira ni se aproxima a todo aquello que es indeterminado, falto de medida y malo. Permanece, pues, pura, enteramente determinada por la inteligencia. En cambio, el alma que no permaneció así, sino que, saliendo de aquélla, avanzó como fantasma de aquélla por no ser perfecta ni primaria, colmada de indeterminación por su carencia, en la medida en que carece, no ve sino tiniebla y se contagia ya de materia al ver lo que no ve, tal como decimos que vemos aun la tiniebla.

La nature des corps, en tant qu’elle participe de la matière, est un mal; cependant elle ne saurait être le Premier mal : car elle a une certaine forme; mais cette forme n’a rien de réel; en outre, elle est privée de la vie ¹ : car les corps se corrompent mutuellement; agités d’un mouvement déréglé ², ils empêchent l’âme d’accomplir son action propre; ils sont dans un flux perpétuel, contraire à la nature immuable des essences : aussi constituent-ils le second mal.

Quant à l’âme, elle n’est pas mauvaise par elle-même, et toute âme n’est pas mauvaise. Quelle est donc celle qui mérite ce nom? Celle de l’homme qui, selon l’expression de Platon ³, est esclave du corps, chez qui la méchanceté de l’âme est naturelle. En effet, la partie irraisonnable de l’âme admet tout ce qui constitue le mal, l’indétermination, l’excès, le défaut, d’où proviennent l’intempérance, la lâcheté et les autres vices de l’âme, les passions involontaires, mères des fausses opinions, qui nous font regarder comme des biens ou des maux les choses que nous recherchons ou que nous évitons, Mais qu’est-ce qui produit ce mal? comment en faire une cause, un principe? D’abord, l’âme n’est ni indépendante de la matière, ni perverse par elle-même. En vertu de son union avec le corps, qui est matériel, elle est mêlée à l’indétermination, et jusqu’à un certain point privée de la forme qui embellit et qui donne la mesure. Ensuite, si la raison est gênée dans ses opérations, si elle ne peut bien voir, c’est qu’elle est entravée par les passions, obscurcie par les ténèbres dont l’environne la matière; c’est qu’elle incline vers celle-ci; enfin, c’est qu’elle fixe ses regards, non sur ce qui est essence, mais sur ce qui est simple génération ⁴: or le principe de la génération, c’est la matière, dont la nature est si mauvaise qu’elle la communique aux êtres qui, même sans lui être unis, la regardent seulement. Comme elle est entièrement dépourvue du bien, qu’elle en est la privation, le manque complet, la matière rend semblable à elle-même tout ce qui la touche. Donc, l’âme parfaite, tournée vers l’Intelligence, toujours pure, éloigne d’elle la matière, l’indéterminé, le défaut de mesure, le Mal en un mot; elle n’en approche pas, n’y abaisse pas ses regards; elle demeure pure et déterminée par l’Intelligence. L’âme qui ne reste pas dans cet état et qui sort d’elle-même [pour s’unir au corps], n’étant pas déterminée par le Premier, le Parfait, n’est plus qu’une image de l’âme parfaite parce qu’elle manque [du Bien] et qu’elle est remplie d’indétermination; elle ne voit que ténèbres; elle a déjà en elle de la matière parce qu’elle regarde ce qu’elle ne peut voir, parce qu’elle regarde les ténèbres, comme on le dit ordinairement ⁵.

MATTER AS THE SECONDARY EVIL.

4. So far as the nature of bodies participates in matter, it is an evil; yet it could not be the primary Evil, for it has a certain form. Nevertheless, this form possesses no reality, and is, besides, deprived of life (?) ; for bodies corrupt each other mutually. Being agitated by an unregulated movement, they hinder the soul from carrying out her proper movement. They are in a perpetual flux, contrary to the immutable nature of essences; therefore, they constitute the secondary evil.

THE SOUL IS NOT EVIL BY HERSELF. BUT MAY DEGENERATE BY LOOKING AT DARKNESS.

By herself, the soul is not evil, and not every soul is evil. What soul deserves to be so considered T That of the man who, according to the expression of Plato, is a slave to the body. In this man it is natural for the soul to be evil. It is indeed the irrational part of the soul which harbors all that constitutes evil: indetermination, excess, and need, from which are derived intemperance, cowardliness, and all the vices of the soul, the involuntary passions, mothers of false opinions, which lead us to consider the things we seek or avoid as goods or evils. But what produces this evil? How shall we make a cause or a principle of it? To begin with, the soul is neither independent of matter, nor, by herself, perverse. By virtue of her union with the body, which is material, she is mingled with indetermination, and so, to a certain point, deprived of the form which embellishes and which supplies measure. Further, that reason should be hindered in its operations, and cannot see well, must be due to the soul’s being hindered by passions, and obscured by the darkness with which matter surrounds her. The soul inclines towards matter. Thus the soul fixes her glance, not on what is essence, but on what is simple generation. Now the principle of generation is matter, whose nature is so bad that matter communicates it to the beings which, even without being united thereto, merely look at it. Being the privation of good, matter contains none of it, and assimilates to itself all that touches it. Therefore, the perfect Soul, being turned towards ever pure Intelligence, repels matter, indeterminateness, the lack of measure, and in short, evil. The perfect Soul does not approach to it, does not lower her looks; she remains pure and determined by Intelligence. The soul which does not remain in this state, and which issues from herself (to unite with the body), not being determined by the First, the Perfect, is no more than an image of the perfect Soul because she lacks (good), and is filled with indetermination. The soul sees nothing but darkness. The soul already contains matter because she looks at what she cannot see; or, in the every-day expression, because the soul looks at darkness.

4. The bodily Kind, in that it partakes of Matter is an evil thing. What form is in bodies is an untrue-form: they are without life: by their own natural disorderly movement they make away with each other; they are hindrances to the soul in its proper Act; in their ceaseless flux they are always slipping away from Being.

Soul, on the contrary, since not every Soul is evil, is not an evil Kind.

What, then, is the evil Soul?

It is, we read, the Soul that has entered into the service of that in which soul-evil is implanted by nature, in whose service the unreasoning phase of the Soul accepts evil – unmeasure, excess and shortcoming, which bring forth licentiousness, cowardice and all other flaws of the Soul, all the states, foreign to the true nature, which set up false judgements, so that the Soul comes to name things good or evil not by their true value but by the mere test of like and dislike.

But what is the root of this evil state? how can it be brought under the causing principle indicated?

Firstly, such a Soul is not apart from Matter, is not purely itself. That is to say, it is touched with Unmeasure, it is shut out from the Forming-Idea that orders and brings to measure, and this because it is merged into a body made of Matter.

Then if the Reasoning-Faculty too has taken hurt, the Soul’s seeing is baulked by the passions and by the darkening that Matter brings to it, by its decline into Matter, by its very attention no longer to Essence but to Process – whose principle or source is, again, Matter, the Kind so evil as to saturate with its own pravity even that which is not in it but merely looks towards it.

For, wholly without part in Good, the negation of Good, unmingled Lack, this Matter-Kind makes over to its own likeness whatsoever comes in touch with it.

The Soul wrought to perfection, addressed towards the Intellectual-Principle, is steadfastly pure: it has turned away from Matter; all that is undetermined, that is outside of measure, that is evil, it neither sees nor draws near; it endures in its purity, only, and wholly, determined by the Intellectual-Principle.

The Soul that breaks away from this source of its reality to the non-perfect and non-primal is, as it were, a secondary, an image, to the loyal Soul. By its falling-away – and to the extent of the fall – it is stripped of Determination, becomes wholly indeterminate, sees darkness. Looking to what repels vision, as we look when we are said to see darkness, it has taken Matter into itself.