Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00025)

The Six Enneads

  BY PLOTINUS

   Written 250 A.D.
   Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page
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  THE THIRD ENNEAD - FIRST TRACTATE  [excerpts]

     FATE.
[...]
     8. What can this other cause be; one standing above those treated
     of; one that leaves nothing causeless, that preserves sequence and
     order in the Universe and yet allows ourselves some reality and
     leaves room for prediction and augury?

     Soul: we must place at the crest of the world of beings, this other
     Principle, not merely the Soul of the Universe but, included in it,
     the Soul of the individual: this, no mean Principle, is needed to be
     the bond of union in the total of things, not, itself, a thing
     sprung like things from life-seeds, but a first-hand Cause, bodiless
     and therefore supreme over itself, free, beyond the reach of kosmic
     Cause: for, brought into body, it would not be unrestrictedly
     sovereign; it would hold rank in a series.

     Now the environment into which this independent principle enters,
     when it comes to this midpoint, will be largely led by secondary
     causes [or, by chance-causes]: there will therefore be a compromise;
     the action of the Soul will be in part guided by this environment
     while in other matters it will be sovereign, leading the way where
     it will. The nobler Soul will have the greater power; the poorer
     Soul, the lesser. A soul which defers to the bodily temperament
     cannot escape desire and rage and is abject in poverty, overbearing
     in wealth, arbitrary in power. The soul of nobler nature holds good
     against its surroundings; it is more apt to change them than to be
     changed, so that often it improves the environment and, where it
     must make concession, at least keeps its innocence.

     9. We admit, then, a Necessity in all that is brought about by this
     compromise between evil and accidental circumstance: what room was
     there for anything else than the thing that is? Given all the
     causes, all must happen beyond aye or nay- that is, all the external
     and whatever may be due to the sidereal circuit- therefore when the
     Soul has been modified by outer forces and acts under that pressure
     so that what it does is no more than an unreflecting acceptance of
     stimulus, neither the act nor the state can be described as
     voluntary: so, too, when even from within itself, it falls at times
     below its best and ignores the true, the highest, laws of action.

     But when our Soul holds to its Reason-Principle, to the guide, pure
     and detached and native to itself, only then can we speak of
     personal operation, of voluntary act. Things so done may truly be
     described as our doing, for they have no other source; they are the
     issue of the unmingled Soul, a Principle that is a First, a leader,
     a sovereign not subject to the errors of ignorance, not to be
     overthrown by the tyranny of the desires which, where they can break
     in, drive and drag, so as to allow of no act of ours, but mere
     answer to stimulus.

     10. To sum the results of our argument: All things and events are
     foreshown and brought into being by causes; but the causation is of
     two Kinds; there are results originating from the Soul and results
     due to other causes, those of the environment.

     In the action of our Souls all that is done of their own motion in
     the light of sound reason is the Soul's work, while what is done
     where they are hindered from their own action is not so much done as
     suffered. Unwisdom, then, is not due to the Soul, and, in general-
     if we mean by Fate a compulsion outside ourselves- an act is fated
     when it is contrary to wisdom.

     But all our best is of our own doing: such is our nature as long as
     we remain detached. The wise and good do perform acts; their right
     action is the expression of their own power: in the others it comes
     in the breathing spaces when the passions are in abeyance; but it is
     not that they draw this occasional wisdom from outside themselves;
     simply, they are for the time being unhindered.
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