THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
printed in a Latin translation by Marsilio Ficino at Florence in 1492, then in Greek and Latin at Basel, 1580.
II. The System of Plotinus: What principally distinguishes Plotinus from both Plato and his immediate predecessors is the assumption of a principle higher than the nous. This assumpi. Doctrine tion proceeds from the requirement of of the unity as an attribute of the highest "One." principle; the nous, as at once subject and object of perception, nooun and nooumenon, is twofold. Therefore something higher must be sought, which is absolute unity, the One, identical with the Godhead and wholly transcendent— the first cause, the source of all thinking and being, all the good and beautiful, and all activity. The utter transcendence of God being thus taught by Plotinus in a more extreme form than by any of his predecessors, he admits the insolubility by human reason of the most difficult of all metaphysical problems— how becoming arose out of immutable being and plurality out of unity. The theory of Emanation (q.v.), which he accepts, does not answer the question; but, following Plato, he suggests that the explanation may be found in the goodness or benevolence of God. All other beings produce yet others; and how should the most perfect of all beings, the primal goodness and the highest power, remain absorbed in itself as though impotent to produce ? This, of course, is rather an anthropomorphic-ethical than a metaphysical explanation; an attempt to supply the latter is found in the view that the highest being is over-full, and, as the higher, does not precisely contain the lower in itself but allows it to flow forth from its superabundant perfection. This doctrine may possibly show oriental influence; but the idea of emanation occurs in the Stoic teaching, and still more in Philo, though in neither so fully developed as with Plotinus. That which first issues from the One is the nous, which is conscious of being a product and image of the One and receives from its relation 2. The to the One its power to produce other World- existences. It is not mere thought but Soul. actual being, comprehending all things as the genus comprehends the species. It contains the ideas, contrary to the teaching of Plato, who conceived it as being contained in one of them, that of good. Another difference is that whereas Plato asserted the existence of ideas only for such objects as had a common concept or name, Plotinus attributes them to all single existences. From the nous proceeds further the soul, the third principle. As the highest principle has neither thought nor consciousness, so the nous, which is purely contemplative, has no reflective, logical thought. This is the work of the world-soul, which is the link between the intelligible and the phenomenal world, carrying on the process of emanation down to its lowest terms. Matter is conceived by Plotinus not exactly as an emanation from the world-soul, but rather (as with Plato) in the guise of a receptive or passive principle in contrast to the formative or active. What the world-soul sees in the nous, with that it is pervaded and that it strives to reproduce. The content of the soul de-
scends to lower stages. This content is composed of the ideas; and thus in the image of the nous and soul images of the ideas are also contained. These are the logoi, concepts, whose sum, the Logos par excellence, like the world-soul itself, is an emanation from the nous. These logoi are the essential factor in the giving of form to matter, which is formed in an organic, not a mechanical, manner. This formative process presupposes purpose, but not knowledge or deliberation — just as in Heraclitus all becoming takes place on rational principles, yet without any conscious foresight. If everything, therefore, is formed and pervaded by rational powers, the world-soul with its content permeating all, all must be rational or reason. Although the logoi are lower than their prototypes, and their relations with formless matter go lower still, yet Plotinus finds in the world of phenomena traces of the highest; the absolutely Good and Beautiful is visi- ,ble even in the world of sense. The spirit of Plato, as expressed in the close of the Timozus, the idea that the sensible world is a great and beautiful and perfect thing, dominates Plotinus also, so that in spite of matter producing evil, he is far from regarding this world as evil or hateful, representing rather in this point the general optimism of Greek philosophy than the tendency of the early Christian writers to despise the visible world. On the whole, in his explanation of the existence of evil in the universe and his justification of the higher powers in respect to it, he follows the Stoics.
From the world-soul proceed individual souls, but they are not parts of it. Going down into bodies, they have forgotten the higher, 3. Religion the divine, from which they came, and and have believed themselves independent; Ethics. thus they have gone continually lower, and stand in need of a return to the better; but Plotinus does not make it plain whether this can be executed with freedom by men. The ethical goal is sometimes represented, after Plato, as approximation to the Godhead, sometimes in a more Aristotelian fashion as operation in conformity with the nature of the operator, and again, with Heraclitus and the Stoics, as obedience to reason. Among the virtues Plotinus distinguishes first the " political " or social, which are the four commonly accepted by the Greeks — prudence, courage, temperance, and justice; but these can not make the soul like God. Above them are the purifying virtues, which have that effect. They consist in freeing oneself as far as possible from the body and from sin by an avoidance of what is sensual, though without any exaggerated asceticism. Man, however, is not to be satisfied by mere freedom from sin, but must strive actually to become God. To this end serve the deifying virtues, which are the reproduction on a higher plane of the primary or political virtues. Through these the true nature of man comes to its fulfilment; and thus his beatitude consists in the maintenance of his proper attitude toward himself, undisturbed by external happenings or relations. The supreme aim, indeed, with Plotinus as with Philo, lies not in the realm of_. thought (as the detailed exposition of the deifying virtues might suggest), but in ecstatic elevation to