Then we find the pilot-simile as illustration for the relation of soul
to body,[459] although in Numenius it appears of the Logos and the
world.
We find the animal divided in two souls, the irrational and the
rational,[460] which reminds us of Numenius's division into two
souls.[461]
The soul consists of a peculiar kind of motion, which however is
entirely different from that of other bodies, which is its own
life.[462] This reminds us of Numenius's still-standing of the Supreme,
which however is simultaneously innate motion.[463]
Referring to the problem, discussed elsewhere, that these Plotinic
works of the latest or Eustochian period, are the most Numenian, which
we would be most likely to attribute to his early or formative stage,
rather than to the last or perfected period, it is interesting to
notice that these works seem to imply other works of the Amelian or
Porphyrian periods, by the words,[464] "It has been said," or treated
of, referring evidently to several passages.[465] Still this need not
necessarily refer to this later work, it may even refer to Plato, or
even to Numenius's allegory of the Cave of the Nymphs,[470] where the
descent of the souls is most definitely studied. Or it might even refer
to Num. 35a, where birth or genesis is referred to as the wetting of
the souls in the matter of bodies.
Moreover, they contain an acknowledgment, and a study of positive evil,
something which would be very unlikely after his elaborate explaining
away of evil in his treatise against the Gnostics, of the Porphyrian
period, and his last treatment of Matter, where he is even willing to
grant the possibility of matter possessing Being. The natural process
for any thinker must ever be to begin with comparative imitation of his
master, and then to progress to independent treatment of the subject.
But for the process to be reversed is hardly likely.
Moreover, when we examine these Eustochian works in detail, they
hardly seem to be such as would be the expressions of the last years
of an ecstatic, suffering intense agony at times, his interest already
directed heavenwards. The discussion of astrology must date from the
earliest association with Gnostics, in Alexandria, who also might have
inspired or demanded a special treatment of the nature of evil, which
later he consistently denied. Then there is an amateurish treatment of
anthropology in general, which the cumulatively-arranging Porphyry puts
at the very beginning of the First Book. The treatise on the First Good
and Happiness, is not unlike a beginner's first attempt at writing out
his body of divinity, as George Herbert said, and Porphyry also puts it
at the beginning. The Eros-article is only an amplification of Platonic
myths, indeed making subtler distinctions, still not rising to the
heights of pure, subjective speculation.
These general considerations may be supplemented by a few more definite
indications. It is in the Eros-article that we find the Platonic
myth of Poros and Penia. Yet these reappear in the earliest Amelian
treatment of matter (ii. 4), as a sort of echo, mentioned only by the
way, as if they had been earlier thoroughly threshed out. Here also we
find only a stray, incidental use of the term "hypostasis," whereas the
Stoic language in other Amelian and Porphyrian treatises has already
been pointed out.
We are therefore driven to the following, very human and natural
conclusion. Plotinos's first attempts at philosophical writing had
consisted of chiefly Numenian disquisitions, which would be natural in
Alexandria, where Numenius had probably resided, and had left friends
and successors among the Gnostics. When Plotinos went to Rome, he
took these writings with him, but was too absorbed in new original
Amelian treatises to resurrect his youthful Numenian attempts, which he
probably did not value highly, as being the least original, and because
they taught doctrines he had left behind in his Aristotelian and Stoic
progress. He laid them aside. Only when Porphyry had left him, and he
felt the increasing feebleness due to old age and Stoic austerities,
did his attendant Eustochius urge him to preserve these early works.
Plotinos was willing, and sent them to Sicily where Porphyry had
retired. And so it happened with Plotinos, as it has happened with many
another writer, that the last things became first, and the first became
last.
* * * * *
The idea of classifying the works of Plotinos chronologically,
therefore, has so much external proof, as well as internal indications,
to support it, that, no doubt, in the future no reference will be
made to Plotinos without specifying to which period it refers; and we
may expect that future editions of his works will undo the grievous
confusion introduced by Porphyry, and thus render Plotinos's works
comparatively accessible to rational study.
There are besides many other minor proofs of the chronological order
of the writings of Plotinos, most of which are noticed at the heading
of each succeeding book; but the most startling human references are
those to Amelius's departure as a false friend;[466] to Porphyry's
desire to suicide at his departure,[467] and to his own impending
dissolution,[468] each of these occurring at the exact time of the
event chronologically, but certainly not according to the traditional
order.