[Plotinus Ennead 1.6.6: “So we must follow the same line of inquiry to discover beauty and goodness, and ugliness and evil. And first we must posit beauty which is also the good.” Ennead 1, trans. Armstrong, 251.—Trans.]
[Plotinus Ennead 5.2.1, trans. Armstrong, 59.—Trans.]
[Plotinus Ennead 6.7.17: “So when its life was looking towards that it was unlimited, but after it had looked there it was limited . . . For immediately by looking to something which is one the life is limited by it, and has in itself limit and bound and form . . . for life defined and limited is intellect.” Ennead 6, trans. Armstrong, 142–43.—Trans.]
scattered throughout a multiplicity of intelligibles? Herein lies the true difficulty and the center of the Plotinian system. For this problem is linked to the further problem, no less important, of divine Transcendence or Immanence, and to those that posit relationships between Intelligence and the intelligible, or between the World Soul and individual souls. And it is precisely here that there intervenes a certain way of seeing, particular to Plotinus, one that we will have to define at the end of our study.
At times, Plotinus is content to describe the mechanism of the operation: “That Good is the principle, and it is from that that they are in this Intellect, and it is this which has made them from that Good. For it was not lawful in looking to him to think nothing, nor again to think what was in him; for then Intellect itself would not have generated them. Intellect therefore had the power from him to generate and to be filled full of its own offspring, since the Good gave what he did not himself have. But from the Good himself who is one there were many for this Intellect; for it was unable to hold the power which it received and broke it up and made the one power many, that it might be able so to bear it part by part.”24 But if, from the description, Plotinus passes over to the explanation, he has recourse to images. How can the One both be and not be dispersed in multiplicity? As a tree is spread out among its branches without being found in them entirely,25 as light is dispersed in the rays it emits without, however, being gathered together in them,26 as fire gives off heat and communicates it by affinity,27 and finally, as a source is able to give birth to rivers that will run to a sea of different yet similar waters,28 this is how the One both is and is not dispersed in multiplicity. Stated differently, the principle of contradiction could be used
- Ennead VI, 7, 15: “Le Bien est principe. C’est de lui que ‘Intelligence tient les êtres qu’elle produit. Quand elle les regarde il n’est pas plus permis à l’Intelligence de ne rien penser que de penser ce qui est en lui; sinon elle n’engendrerait pas. De l’Un, elle tient la puissance d’engendrer et de se rassasier des êtres qu’elle engendre; il lui donne ce qu’il ne possède pas lui-même. De l’Un naît pour l’Intelligence une multiplicité: incapable de contenir la puissance qu’elle reçoit de lui, elle la fragmente et la multiplie, afin de pouvoir la supporter ainsi, partie par partie.”
[Plotinus Ennead 6.7.15, ibid., 135–37. I have matched Camus’ emphasis in the English translation.—Trans.] 25. Ennead V, 5, 2, end. - Ennead V, 1, 6.
- Ennead V, 4, 1.
- III, 8, 10.
if it were a question of creation, but under the category of procession, it is necessary to appeal to another principle, one very similar to that principle of participation that Levy Bruhl attributes only to primitive mentalities. But it is in the interior of the intelligible world that one must attempt to understand this particular solution.
c) The Second Hypostasis. On the rational plane, which we are here attempting to consider almost exclusively, is Intelligence, which is endowed with the greatest explanatory power. Moreover, the theory is not itself completely fixed. We can begin by noting a double aspect that is already classic for us. Intelligence is a metaphysical principle but remains a stage in the repatriation of the soul. In the first aspect, it is identified with the world of platonic Ideas. But within even this last notion, we can detect three interpretations juxtaposed to the second hypostasis. Intelligence is, in the first place, a kind of intuitive art that is reflected in the world’s crystal, as the art of the sculptor is divined in very rough-hewn clay. Second, it is the perfect model upon which the Forms are moulded. And last, it is a God, or rather a demiurge, who has given form to matter. But we must be careful not to exaggerate this diversity of interpretation. And here let us take the notion of Intelligence in its broadest meaning of the world of ideas. At this point a problem arises that is closely related to the one we saw in the theory of the One, namely, the problem of how the Intelligence pours itself into the intelligibles. Are the intelligibles different from Intelligence, or are they inwardly of a form that is common to both?
Plotinus’s solution is the notion of transparency. The intelligibles are within Intelligence, but their relations are not those that ordinary logic would accept. Like those diamonds that the same water covers, of which each flash is nourished by fires that also reflect on other surfaces, such that this infinitely repeated light is defined only by these fires but at the same time without being able to embody them, in this way Intelligence scatters its brilliance in the intelligibles that are in it, as it is in them, without one being able to say what it is of Intelligence that belongs to them and what of them belongs to it. “All things there are transparent, and there is nothing dark or opaque; everything and all things are clear to the inmost part to everything; for light itself is transparent to light. Each there has everything in itself and sees all things in every other, so that all are everywhere and each and every one is all and the glory is unbounded . . . the sun there is all the stars, and each star is the sun and all others.
A different kind of being stands out in each, but in each all are manifest . . . Here, however, one part would not come from another, and each would be only a part; but there each comes only from the whole and is part and whole at once.”29 What stands out in these remarks is that Intelligence bears within it all the wealth of the intelligible world. To know, for Intelligence, is entirely in knowing itself—and through that, knowing the One. In this idea is found the Unity of the second hypostasis, however one may envisage it. But at precisely this point thought changes levels in order to enter into conversion and inner asceticism, which we have not yet taken into consideration. Let us note only that in the ideal, Intelligence indicates a state in which the object is identified with the
- Ennead II, 8, 4 [sic]: “Tout est transparent, rien d’obscur ni de résistant; tout être y est visible à tout être jusque dans son infinité; il est une lumière pour une lumière. Tout être a en lui toutes choses et voit toutes choses en autrui. Tout est partout. Tout est tout. Chaque être est tout. Là-bas, le soleil est tous les astres et chacun d’eux est le soleil . . . Un caractères s’y manifestent . . . Ici-bas une partie vient d’une autre partie, et chaque chose est fragmentaire: là-bas chaque être vient à chaque instant du tout et il est à la fois particulier et universel.” Also, we cite in a note, due to its length, a suggestive text, by its image and meaning, on this aspect of Plotinian thought. Ibid., VI, 8, 9 [sic]: “Supposez que dans votre monde visible chaque partie reste ce qu’elle est sans confusion, mais que toutes se rassemblent en une, de telle sorte qui si l’une d’entre elles apparaît, par exemple la sphère des fixes, il s’ensuit immédiatement l’apparition du soleil et des autres astres; l’on voit en elle, comme sur une sphère transparente, la terre, la mer et tous les animaux; effectivement alors, on y voit toutes choses. Soit donc, dans l’âme, la représentation d’une telle sphère. Gardez-en l’image et représentez-vous une autre sphère pareille en faisant abstraction de sa masse; faites abstraction aussi des différences de position et de l’image de la matière; ne vous contentez pas de vous représenter une seconde sphère plus
