3. To this it may first be answered that the indeterminate should not
be scorned everywhere, nor that which is conceived of as shapeless,
even if this be the substrate of the higher and better entities; for
we might call even the soul indeterminate, in respect to intelligence
and reason, which give it a better shape and nature. Besides, when
we say that intelligible things are composite (of matter and form),
this is not in the sense in which the word is used of bodies. Even
reasons would thus be called composite, and by their actualization
form another alleged composite, nature, which aspires to form. If,
in the intelligible world, the composite tend toward some other
principle, or depend thereon, the difference between this composite
and bodies is still better marked. Besides, the matter of begotten
things ceaselessly changes form, while the matter of the intelligible
entities ever remains identical. Further, matter here below is subject
to other conditions (than in the intelligible world). Here below,
indeed, matter is all things only partly, and is all things only
successively; consequently, amidst these perpetual changes nothing is
identical, nothing is permanent. Above, on the contrary, matter is all
things simultaneously, and possessing all things, could not transform
itself. Consequently, matter is never shapeless above; for it is not
even shapeless here below. Only the one (intelligible matter) is
situated differently from the other (sense-matter). Whether, however,
(intelligible matter) be begotten, or be eternal, is a question that
cannot be determined until we know what it is.
THE NATURE OF IDEAS IMPLIES AN INDIVIDUAL FORM, WHICH AGAIN IMPLIES A
SUBSTRATE.
4. Granting now the existence of ideas, whose reality has been
demonstrated elsewhere,[283] we must draw their legitimate
consequences. Necessarily ideas have something in common, inasmuch as
they are manifold; and since they differ from each other, they must
also have something individual. Now the individuality of any idea,
the difference that distinguishes it from any other, consists of its
particular shape. But form, to be received, implies a substrate, that
might be determined by the difference. There is therefore always a
matter that receives form, and there is always a substrate (even in
ideas, whose matter is genus, and whose form is its difference).
RELYING ON THE PUN BETWEEN WORLD AND ADORNMENT, PLOTINOS CONCLUDES
THAT IF THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD BE THE IMAGE OF THIS, IT MUST ALSO BE A
COMPOSITE OF FORM AND MATTER.
Besides, our world is an image of the intelligible world. Now as our
world is a composite of matter (and form), there must be matter also on
high (that is, in the intelligible world). Otherwise, how could we call
the intelligible world "kosmos" (that is, either world, or adornment),
unless we see matter (receiving) form therein? How could we find form
there, without (a residence) that should receive it? That world is
indivisible, taken in an absolute sense; but in a relative sense, is it
divisible? Now if its parts be distinct from each other, their division
or distinction is a passive modification of matter; for what can be
divided, must be matter. If the multitude of ideals constitute an
indivisible being, this multitude, which resides in a single being, has
this single being as substrate, that is, as matter and is its shapes.
This single, yet varied substrate conceives of itself as shapeless,
before conceiving of itself as varied. If then by thought you abstract
from it variety, forms, reasons, and intelligible characteristics, that
which is prior is indeterminate and shapeless; then there will remain
in this (subject) none of the things that are in it and with it.