agreement not to commit his philosophy to writing, it was not until
late in life that Plotinus wrote; or, rather, the works received from
him were published after his death by Porphyrius, one of his disciples.
From the same disciple we have an account of the life of Plotinus; what
is remarkable in it is that the strictly historical facts recounted
are mixed up with a great variety of marvellous episodes. This is
certainly the period when the marvellous plays a prominent part; but
when the pure system of Philosophy, the pure meaning of such a man, is
known, it is impossible to express all one’s astonishment at anecdotes
of this kind. Plotinus was an Egyptian; he was born at Lycopolis about
A.D. 205, in the reign of Septimius Severus. After he had attended
the lectures of many teachers of Philosophy, he became melancholy
and absorbed in thought; at the age of eight and twenty he came to
Ammonius, and, finding here at last what satisfied him, he remained for
eleven years under his instruction. As at that time wonderful accounts
of Indian and Brahminical wisdom were being circulated, Plotinus set
out on his way to Persia in the army of the Emperor Gordian; but
the campaign ended so disastrously that Plotinus did not attain his
object, and had difficulty even in procuring his own safety. At
the age of forty he proceeded to Rome, and remained there until his
death, twenty-six years later. In Rome his outward demeanour was most
remarkable; in accordance with the ancient Pythagorean practice, he
refrained from partaking of flesh, and often imposed fasts on himself;
he wore, also, the ancient Pythagorean dress. As a public lecturer,
however, he gained a high reputation among all classes. The Emperor of
those days, Gallienus, whose favour Plotinus enjoyed, as well as that
of the Empress, is said to have been inclined to hand over to him a
town in Campania, where he thought to realize the Platonic Republic.
The ministers, however, prevented the carrying out of this plan, and
therein they showed themselves men of sense, for in such an outlying
spot of the Roman Empire, and considering the utter change in the
human mind since Plato’s days, when another spiritual principle had
of necessity to make itself universal, this was an enterprise which
was far less calculated than in Plato’s time to bring honour to the
Platonic Republic. It does little credit to the sagacity of Plotinus
that this idea ever entered into his head; but we do not exactly know
if his plan were limited to the Platonic Republic, or if it did not
admit of some extension or modification thereof. Of course an actual
Platonic state was contrary to the nature of things; for the Platonic
state is free and independent, which such an one as this, within the
Roman Empire, could of course not be. Plotinus died at Rome, in the
sixty-sixth year of his age, A.D. 270.[223]
The writings of Plotinus are originally for the most part answers
given as occasion required to questions proposed by his auditors; he
committed them to writing during the last sixteen years of his life,
and Porphyrius edited them some time later. In his teaching Plotinus
adopted, as has been already mentioned, the method of commenting in
his lectures on the writings of various earlier philosophers. The
writings of Plotinus are known as Enneads, and are six in number, each
of them containing nine separate treatises. We thus have altogether
fifty-four of such treatises or books, which are subdivided into many
chapters; it is consequently a voluminous work. The books do not,
however, form a connected whole; but in each book, in fact, there are
special matters brought forward and philosophically handled; and it is
thus laborious to go through them. The first Ennead has for the most
part a moral character; the first book proposes the question of what
animals are, and what man is; the second deals with the virtues; the
third with dialectic; the fourth with happiness (περὶ εὐδαιμονίας); the
fifth investigates whether happiness consists in protraction of time
(παρατάσει χρόνου); the sixth speaks of the beautiful; the seventh of
the highest (πρώτου) good and of the other goods; the eighth inquires
into the origin of evil; the ninth treats of a rational departure from
life. Other Enneads are of a metaphysical nature. Porphyrius says in
his Life of Plotinus (pp. 3-5, 9, 17-19) that they are unequal. He
states that twenty-one of these books were already in written form
before he came to Plotinus, which was when the latter was fifty-nine
years of age; and in that year and the five following, which Porphyrius
spent with Plotinus as his disciple, other four-and-twenty were added.
During the absence of Porphyrius in Sicily, Plotinus wrote nine more
books, in the last years before his death, which later books are
weaker. Creuzer is preparing to bring out an edition of Plotinus. To
give an account of him would be a difficult task, and would amount to
a systematic explanation. The mind of Plotinus hovers over each of the
particular matters that he deals with; he treats them rationally and
dialectically, but traces them all back to one Idea. Many beautiful
detached quotations could be made from Plotinus, but as there is in
his works a continual repetition of certain leading thoughts, the
reading of them is apt to prove wearisome. Since then it is the manner
of Plotinus to lead the particular, which he makes his starting-point,
always back again to the universal, it is possible to grasp the ideas
of Plotinus from some of his books, knowing that the reading of those
remaining would not reveal to us any particular advance. Plato’s ideas
and expressions are predominant with him, but we find also many very
lengthy expositions quite in the manner of Aristotle; for he makes
constant use of terms borrowed from Aristotle—force, energy, &c.—and
their relations are essentially the object of his meditations. The main
point is that he is not to be taken as placing Plato and Aristotle in
opposition; on the contrary, he went so far as to adopt even the Logos
of the Stoics.
It is very difficult to give a systematic account of his philosophy.
For it is not the aim of Plotinus, as it was of Aristotle, to
comprehend objects in their special determinations, but rather
to emphasize the truth of the substantial in them as against the
phenomenal. The point of greatest importance and the leading
characteristic in Plotinus is his high, pure enthusiasm for the
elevation of mind to what is good and true, to the absolute. He lays
hold of knowledge, the simply ideal, and of intellectual thought, which
is implicitly life, but not silent nor sealed. His whole philosophy is
on the one hand metaphysics, but the tendency which is therein dominant
is not so much an anxiety to explain and interpret and comprehend
what forces itself on our attention as reality, or to demonstrate the
position and the origin of these individual objects, and perhaps,
for instance, to offer a deduction of matter, of evil; but rather to
separate the mind from these externals, and give it its central place
in the simple, clear Idea. The whole tenor of his philosophy thus leads
up to virtue and to the intellectual contemplation of the eternal, as
source of the same; so that the soul is brought to happiness of life
therein. Plotinus then enters to some extent on special considerations
of virtue, with the view of cleansing the soul from passions, from
false and impure conceptions of evil and destiny, and also from
incredulity and superstition, from astrology and magic and all their
train. This gives some idea of the general drift of his teaching.
If we now go on to consider the philosophy of Plotinus in detail,
we find that there is no longer any talk of the criterion, as with
the Stoics and Epicureans,—that is all settled; but a strenuous
effort is made to take up a position in the centre of things, in
pure contemplation, in pure thought. Thus what with the Stoics and
Epicureans is the aim, the unity of the soul with itself in untroubled
peace, is here the point of departure; Plotinus takes up the position
of bringing this to pass in himself as a condition of ecstasy
(ἔκστασις), as he calls it, or as an inspiration. Partly in this name
and partly in the facts themselves, a reason has been found for calling
Plotinus a fanatic and visionary, and this is the cry universally
raised against this philosophy; to this assertion the fact that for the
Alexandrian school all truth lies in reason and comprehension alone,
presents a very marked antithesis and contradiction.
And firstly, with regard to the term ecstasy, those who call Plotinus a
fanatic associate with the idea nothing but that condition into which
crazy Indians, Brahmins, monks and nuns fall, when, in order to bring
about an entire retreat into themselves, they seek to blot out from
their minds all ordinary ideas and all perception of reality; thus this
in some measure exists as a permanent and fixed condition; and again as
a steady gaze into vacuity it appears as light or as darkness, devoid
of motion, distinction, and, in a word, of thought. Fanaticism like
this places truth in an existence which stands midway between reality
and the Notion, but is neither the one nor the other,—and therefore
only a creature of the imagination. From this view of ecstasy, however,
Plotinus is far removed.
But in the second place there is something in the thing itself which
has contributed to bring upon him this reproach, and it is this,
that very often the name of fanaticism is given to anything that
transcends sensuous consciousness or the fixed notions of the finite
understanding, which in their limitation are held to constitute real
existence. Partly, however, the imputation is due to the manner in
which Plotinus speaks in general of Notions, spiritual moments as
such, as if they had a substantial existence of their own. That is to
say, Plotinus sometimes introduces sensuous modes, modes of ordinary
conception, into the world of Notions, and sometimes he brings down
Ideas into the sphere of the sensuous, since, for instance, he utilizes
the necessary relations of things for purposes of magic. For the
magician is just he who attributes to certain words and particular
sensuous signs a universal efficacy, and who attempts by prayers,
&c., to lift them up to the universal. Such a universal this is not,
however, in itself, in its own nature: universality is only attributed
to it; or the universal of thought has not yet given itself therein a
universal reality, while the thought, the act of a hero is the true,
the universal, whose effects and whose means have equal greatness and
universality. In a certain sense therefore the Neo-Platonists have
well deserved the reproach of fanaticism, for in the biographies of
the great teachers of this school, Plotinus, Porphyrius and Iamblichus
we certainly find much recounted that comes under the category of
miracle-working and sorcery, just as we found it in the case of
Pythagoras (Vol. I. p. 200). Upholding as they did the belief in the
gods of heathendom, they asserted in reference to the worship of images
that these really were filled with the divine power and presence.
Thus the Alexandrian school cannot be altogether absolved from the
charge of superstition.[224] For in the whole of that period of the
world’s history, among Christians and heathen alike, the belief in
miracle-working prevailed, because the mind, absorbed in itself and
filled with astonishment at the infinite power and majesty of this
self, paid no heed to the natural connection of events, and made the
interference of a supreme power seem easy. But what the philosophers
taught is utterly remote therefrom; except the quite theoretical
observation regarding the images of the gods which we mentioned above,
the writings of Plotinus contain nothing in any way related thereto.
He then who gives the name of fanaticism to every effort of the soul
to rise to the supersensuous, to every belief that man can have in
the virtuous, the noble, the divine, the eternal, to every religious
conviction,—may count the Neo-Platonists as being fanatics; but
fanaticism is in this case an empty name employed only by the dull
finite understanding, and by unbelief in all that is high and noble. If
we, however, give the name of fanatics to those who rise to speculative
truths which contradict the categories of the finite understanding, the
Alexandrians have indeed incurred this imputation, but with quite equal
reason may the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy be also termed
fanaticism. For Plato most certainly speaks with enthusiasm of the
elevation of the spirit into thought, or rather the Platonic enthusiasm
proper consists in rising into the sphere of the movement of thought.
Those who are convinced that the absolute essence in thought is not
thought itself, constantly reiterate that God is beyond consciousness,
and that the thought of Him is the notion of One whose existence or
reality is nevertheless an utterly different thing; just as, when we
think of or imagine an animal or a stone, our notion or imagination is
something quite different from the animal itself,—which is making this
last to be the truth. But we are not speaking of this or that animal
perceived by our senses, but of its essential reality, and this is the
Notion of it. The essential reality of the animal is not present as
such in the animal of our senses, but as being one with the objective
individuality, as a mode of that universal; as essence it is our
Notion, which indeed alone is true, whereas what the senses perceive is
negative. Thus our Notion of absolute essence is the essence itself,
when it is the Notion of absolute essence, not of something else. But
this essence does not seem to be co-extensive with the idea of God; for
He is not only Essence or His Notion, but His existence. His existence,
as pure essence, is our thought of Him; but His real existence is
Nature. In this real existence the ‘I’ is that which has the faculty of
individual thought; it belongs to this existence as a moment present
in it, but does not constitute it. From the existence of essence as
essence we must pass over to existence, to real existence as such.
As such, God is doubtless a Beyond to individual self-consciousness,
that is to say, of course, in the capacity of essence or pure thought;
thus to a certain extent He, as individual reality, is Nature which is
beyond thought. But even this objective mode comes back into essence,
or the individuality of consciousness is overcome. Therefore what has
brought upon Plotinus the reproach of fanaticism is this, that he had
the thought of the essence of God being Thought itself and present in
Thought. As the Christians said that He was once present to sensuous
perception at a certain time and in a certain place—but also that He
ever dwells in His people and is their Spirit—so Plotinus said that
absolute essence is present in the self-consciousness that thinks, and
exists in it as essence, or Thought itself is the Divine.
In further defining the relation of individual self-consciousness to
the knowledge of absolute essence, Plotinus asserts (Ennead. VI. l. 7,
c. 35, 36) that the soul which withdraws from the corporeal and loses
every conception but that of pure essence brings itself nigh to the
Deity. The principle of the philosophy of Plotinus is therefore the
Reason which is in and for itself. The condition of ecstasy through
which alone that which has true Being comes to be known, is named
by Plotinus (Ennead. VI. l. 9, c. 11) a simplification of the soul,
through which it is brought into a state of blissful repose, because
its object is itself simple and at rest. But it is evident that we
are not to imagine this simplification of self-consciousness to be
a condition of fanaticism, seeing that even an immediate knowledge
of God such as this is a thinking of Him and a comprehension of Him,
and not a vacant feeling, or what is quite as vacant, an intuition.
This withdrawal of the soul from the body takes place through pure
thought; thought is the activity and at the same time the object. It
is thus a tranquil state, without any wild turmoil of the blood or
of the imagination. Ecstasy is not a mere rapturous condition of the
senses and fancy, but rather a passing beyond the content of sensuous
consciousness; it is pure thought that is at home with itself, and
is its own object. Plotinus often speaks of this condition in the
same way as in the following passage: “Often when I out of the body
awaken to myself, and am beyond the other,” the external, “and have
entered into my inmost nature, and have a wondrous intuition, and live
a godlike life,” &c.[225] In this way Plotinus certainly approaches
to the intuitive point of view. Yet his figurative mode of expression
separates itself still more from the, in great measure, confused
mythical ideas. The Idea of the philosophy of Plotinus is thus an
intellectualism or a higher idealism, which indeed from the side of the
Notion is not yet a perfect idealism; that of which Plotinus becomes
conscious in his ecstasy is, however, philosophic thought, speculative
Notions and Ideas.
As for the determinate principle of Plotinus, the objective, the
content, which is at home with itself in this ecstasy, in this Being of
Thought—this content, as regards its chief moments in the universal, is
that already dealt with. The three principles are for him the One, the
νοῦς and the soul.
a. The first, the absolute, the basis, is here, as with Philo, pure
Being, the unchangeable, which is the basis and the cause of all Being
that appears, whose potentiality is not apart from its actuality, but
is absolute actuality in itself. It is the unity which is likewise
essence, or unity as the essence of all essence. The true principle
is not the multiplicity of present Being, the ordinary substantiality
of things, according to which each appears as one separated from the
others, for really and truly their unity is their essence. This unity
is, properly speaking, not All; for All is nothing but the result of
the units, the comprehension of them—forming the basis, as they do, as
essence—in a unity which is strange to them. Nor is it before all; for
it is not different from the all in actual existence, since otherwise
it would again be only something thought.[226] The later unity, as
regulative of the Reason, has the force of a subjective principle; but
Plotinus establishes it as the highest objectivity, as Being.
This unity has no multiplicity in it, or multiplicity is not implicit;
unity is only as it was for Parmenides and Zeno, absolute, pure
Being; or else the absolute Good, in the sense in which the absolute
was spoken of in the writings of Plato and especially in those of
Aristotle. In the first place, what is the Good?—“It is that on
which all depends (ἀνήρτηται),[227] and which all things desire
(ἐφίεται)”—also according to Aristotle—“and have as principle, and
which they are all in want of, while itself it has lack of nothing, is
sufficient for itself, and is the measure and limit of all, which out
of itself gives the νοῦς and essence (οὐσίαν) and soul and life, and
the activity of reason (περὶ νοῦν ἐνήργειαν). And up to this point all
is beautiful, but _it_ is more than beautiful (ὑπέρκαλος) and better
than the best (ἐπέκεινα τῶν ἀρίστων), the superlatively good, bearing
free rule, exercising royal rights in Thought (βασιλεύων ἐν τῷ νοητῷ).
But it is itself by no means that whose principle it is. For when thou
hast said “the Good,” add nothing thereto, and think of nothing beyond.
When thou hast abrogated Being itself, and takest it in this wise,
astonishment will seize thee; and, making this thy aim and resting
therein, thou wilt understand it and its greatness by what is derived
from it. And when thou hast Being thus before thee, and regardest it in
this purity, wonder will lay hold of thee.”[228]
Of absolute Being Plotinus then asserted that it is unknowable—which
Philo also said—and that it remains in itself. On this point Plotinus
expatiates at great length, and frequently recurs to the fact that the
soul must really first attain to the thought of this unity through
negative movement, which is something different from mere assertion,
and is rather sceptical movement which makes trial of all predicates
and finds nothing except this One. All such predicates as Being and
substance do not conform to it in the opinion of Plotinus; for they
express some determination or other. There is no sensation, no thought,
no consciousness; for in all these there lies a distinction. Because
the determination of the One is the main point, with Plotinus the
Good is the aim for subjective thought as well as for practical; but
although the Good is the absolutely free, it is nevertheless without
resolution and will; for will has in it the distinction of itself and
the Good.[229]
That Being is and remains God, and is not outside of Him, but is His
very self: “Absolute unity upholds things that they fall not asunder;
it is the firm bond of unity in all, penetrating all—bringing together
and unifying things which in mutual opposition were in danger of
separation. We term it the One and the Good. It neither _is_, nor is it
something, nor is it anything, but it is over all. All these categories
are negatived; it has no magnitude, is not infinite. It is the middle
point of the universe, the eternal source of virtue and the origin of
divine love, around which all moves, by which every thing directs its
course, in which νοῦς and self-consciousness ever have their beginning
and their end.”[230] To this substance Plotinus leads back everything;
it alone is the true, and in all remains simply identical with itself.
But out of this First all proceeds, owing to its revealing itself; that
is the connection with creation and all production. But the Absolute
cannot be conceived as creative, if it is determinate as an abstract,
and is not rather comprehended as the One which has energy in itself.
This transition to the determinate is thus not made by Plotinus
philosophically or dialectically, but the necessity of it is expressed
in representations and images. Thus he says (Ennead. III. l. 8, c. 9)
of the νοῦς, his second principle, “The one absolute Good is a source
which has no other principle, but is the principle for all streams, so
that it is not swallowed up by these, but as source remains at rest in
itself,” and thus contains these streams as such in itself; so that
they, “flowing out in one direction and another, have yet not flowed
away, but know whence and whither they are flowing.” This distinction
is the point to which Plotinus often returns, and this advance from the
unrevealed to the revelation, this production, is a point of importance.
b. Now what is first begotten by this Unity, the Son, is finite
understanding (νοῦς), the second Divine Being, the other principle.
Here the main difficulty confronts us—the task known and recognized
long years ago—the comprehension of how the One came to the decision
to determine itself; and the endeavour to elucidate this fact still
constitutes the essential point of interest. The ancients did not
frame this question in the definite form in which we have it; but they
nevertheless occupied themselves with it. For the νοῦς is nothing
more or less than the self-finding of self; it is the pure duality
(δυάς), itself and its object; it contains all that is thought, it is
this distinction, but pure distinction that remains at the same time
identical with itself. Simple unity is, however, the First. Plotinus
thus also says in a somewhat Pythagorean fashion that things are as
numbers in this λόγος. “But number is not the First, for unity is not
a number. The first number is the two, but as indeterminate duality;
and the one is what determines it; the two is also the soul. Number is
the solid; what sensuous perception takes to be existent, is a later
development.”[231]