FIRST ENNEAD, BOOK ONE.

The Organism and the Self.270

PSYCHOLOGIC DISTINCTIONS IN SOUL.
1. To what part of our nature do pleasure and grief, fear and boldness desire and aversion, and,
last, pain, belong? Is it to the soul (herself),271 or to the soul when she uses the body as an
instrument,272 or to some third (combination) of both? Even the latter might be conceived of in
a double sense: it might be either the simple mixture of the soul and the body,273 or some
different product resulting therefrom.274 The same uncertainty obtains about the products of the
above mentioned experiences: namely, passions,275 actions, and opinions. For example, we may
ask whether ratiocination276 and opinion both, belong to the same principle as the passions; or
whether only one of them does; in which case the other would belong to some other principle.
We should also inquire concerning the nature and classification of thought.277 Last we should
study the principle that undertakes this inquiry and which comes to some conclusion about it.
But, first of all, who is the agent, who feels? This is the real starting point: for even passions are
modes of feeling, or at least they do not exist without it.278

THE SOUL AS A COMPOSITE AGGREGATE.

2. Let us first examine the soul (herself). Is there any difference between the soul and the soulessence?1192 If there be a difference, the soul must be a composite aggregate: and it should no
longer be a matter of surprise that both she and her essence, at least so far as she admits thereof,
together experience the above mentioned passions, and in general the habits, and better or worse
dispositions. But, on the contrary, if, soul and soul-essence be identical, then the soul should be a
form which would be unreceptive for all these energies of essence, which on the contrary she
imparts to other things, possessing in herself a connate energy which our reason reveals in her. In
this case we must acknowledge that she is immortal, inasmuch as the immortal and undecaying
must be impassible, giving to others without receiving anything in return from them; or at least,
deriving nothing but from the superior (or anterior) principles, from which she is not cut off,
inasmuch as they are better.

THE SOUL IS NOT ESSENCE.

A being that were so unreceptive to anything external would have no ground for fear of anything
external. Fear might indeed be natural to something. Neither would she be bold, for this
sentiment, implies shelter from what is terrifying. As to such desires which are satisfied by the
emptying or filling of the body, they belong only to some nature foreign enough to be emptied or
filled. How could she participate in a mixture, inasmuch as the essential is unmingled? Further
she would not wish to have anything introduced (in herself), for this would imply striving to
become something foreign to herself. She would also be far from suffering, for how could she
grieve, and about what? For that which is of simple being is self-sufficient, in that she remains in
her own being. Neither will she rejoice at any increase, as not even the good1193 could happen
to her. What she is, she ever will be. Nor could we attribute to the pure soul sensation,
ratiocination or opinion; for sensation is the perception, of a form or of an impassible body; and

besides ratiocination and opinion (depend) on sensation. We shall, however, have to examine
whether or no we should attribute to the soul thought; also, whether pure pleasure can affect a
soul while she remains alone.279

THE SOUL USES THE BODY AS TOOL.

3. Whether the soul, according to her being, be located in the body, above or within this latter,
the soul forms with the body an entity called (a "living being" or) organism.280 In this case, the
soul using the body as a tool is not forced to participate in its passions, any more than workmen
participate in the experiences of their tools. As to sensations, of course, the soul must perceive
them, since in order to use her instrument, the soul must, by means of sensation, cognize the
modifications that this instrument may receive from without. Thus seeing consists of using the
eyes; and the soul at the same time feels the evils which may affect the sight. Similar is the case
with griefs, pains and any corporeal exigency; also with the desires which arise from the soul's
need to take recourse to the ministry of the body. But how do passions from the body penetrate
into the soul? For a body could communicate her own properties to some other body; but how
could she do so to a soul?

SEPARATION OF SOUL FROM BODY.

Such a process would imply that one individual suffers when an entirely different individual is
affected. There must be a distinction between them so long as1194 we consider the former the
user, and the latter the used; and it is philosophy,281 that produces this separation by giving to
the soul the power of using the body as a tool.

PRIMITIVE RELATION BETWEEN SOUL AND BODY.

But what was the condition of the soul before her separation from the body by philosophy? Was
she mingled with the body? If she were mingled with it, she must either have been formed282 by
mixing;271 or she was spread all over the body; or she was283 a form interwoven with the body;
or she was a form governing the body284 as a pilot governs the ship;285 or286 was partly
mingled with, and partly separated from, the body. (In the latter case) I would call the
independent part that which uses the body as a tool, while the mingled part is that which lowers
itself to the classification or rank of instrument. Now philosophy raises the latter to the rank of
the former; and the detached part turns her away, as far as our needs allow, from the body she
uses, so that she may not always have to use the body.

CONSEQUENCES OF MIXTURE OF SOUL AND BODY.

4. Now let us suppose the soul is mingled with the body. In this mixture, the worse part, or body,
will gain, while the soul will lose. The body will improve by participation with the soul; and the
soul will deteriorate by association with death and irrationality. Well, does the soul, in somewhat
losing life, gain the accession of sensation? On the other hand, would not the body, by
participation in life, gain sensation and its derived passions? It is the latter, then, which will
desire, inasmuch as it will enjoy the desired objects,1195 and will feel fear about them. It is the
latter which may be exposed to the escape of the objects of its desire, and to decay.287

MIXTURE OF SOUL AND BODY.

We will set aside as impossible the mixture of two incommensurables, such as a line and the
color called white. A mixture of the soul and body, which must imply their commensurability,
would demand explanation. Even if the soul interpenetrate the body, the soul need not share the
body's passions, for the interpenetrating medium may remain impassible; as light, which remains
such in spite of its diffusion.288 Thus the soul might remain a stranger to the body's passions,
though diffused through it, and need not necessarily undergo its passions.

ARISTOTELIAN HYPOTHESIS CONSIDERED.

Should we say that the soul is in the body, as form in matter? In this case, she is "being," and she
would be a separable form. If then289 she be in the body as, in the case of the axe, the schematic
figure is in the iron, so as by her own proper virtue, to form the power of doing what iron thus
formed accomplishes, we will have all the more reason to attribute the common passions to the
body, which is290 an organized physical tool possessing potential life. For if as (Plato) says291
it be absurd to suppose that it is the soul that weaves, it is not any more reasonable to attribute
the desires and griefs to the soul; rather, by far, to the living organism.
1196

THE LIVING ORGANISM.

5. The "living organism" must mean either the thus organized body, or the common mixture of
soul and body, or some third thing which proceeds from the two first. In either of these three
cases the soul will have to be considered impassible, while the power of experiencing passions
will inhere in something else; or the soul will have to share the body's passions, in which case the
soul will have to experience passions either identical or analogous to those of the body, so that to
a desire of the animal there will correspond an act or a passion of the concupiscible appetite.

REFUTATION OF THE (JAMES-LANGE) THEORY OF EMOTIONS.

We shall later on consider the organized body; here we must find how the conjunction of soul
and body could experience suffering. The theory that the affection of the body modifies it so as
to produce a sensation which itself would end in the soul, leaves unexplained the origin of
sensation. To the theory that suffering has its principle in this opinion or judgment, that a
misfortune is happening to ourselves or some one related to us, whence results disagreeable
emotion first in the body, and then in the whole living organism,292 there is this objection, that it
is yet uncertain to which opinion belongs; to the soul, or to the conjunction of soul and body.
Besides, the opinion of the presence of an evil does not always entail suffering; it is possible that,
in spite of such an opinion, one feels no affliction; as, for instance, one may not become irritated
at believing oneself scorned; or in experiencing no desire even in the expectation of some good.
1197

NOT ALL AFFECTIONS COMMON TO SOUL AND BODY.

How then arise these affections common to the soul and the body? Shall we then say that desire
derives from the desire-appetite,293 anger from the anger-appetite, or in short, every emotion or
affliction from the corresponding appetite? But even so, they will not be common, and they will
belong exclusively to the soul, or to the body. There are some whose origin needs the excitation
of blood and bile, and that the body be in some certain state which excites desire, as in physical
love. On the contrary, however, the desire of goodness is no common affection; it is an affection
peculiar to the soul, as are several others. Reason, therefore, does not allow us to consider all
affections as common to soul and body.

DESIRE, NOT SIMULTANEOUS WITH APPETITE.

Is it possible, however, that for example, in physical love, the man294 may experience a desire
simultaneously with the corresponding appetite? This is impossible, for two reasons. If we say
that the man begins to experience the desire, while the corresponding appetite continues it, it is
plain the man cannot experience a desire without the activity of the appetite. If on the other hand
it be the appetite that begins, it is clear that it cannot begin being excited unless the body first
find itself in suitable circumstances, which is unreasonable.

SOUL AND BODY, BY UNITING, FORM AN INDIVIDUAL AGGREGATE.

6. It would, however, probably be better to put the matter thus: by their presence, the faculties of
the1198 soul cause reaction in the organs which possess them, so that while they themselves
remain unmoved, they give them the power to enter into movement.295 In this case, however,
when the living organism experiences suffering, the life-imparting cause must itself remain
impassible, while the passions and energies belong wholly to that which receives life. In this
case, therefore, the life will not belong exclusively to the soul, but to the conjunction of the soul
and body; or, at least, the latter's life will not be identical with the soul's, nor will it be the faculty
of sensation, which will feel, but the being in whom that faculty inheres.

SENSATION IMPLIES FEELING SOUL.

If, however, sensation, which is no more than a corporeal emotion, finds its term in the soul, the
soul must surely feel sensation; therefore it does not occur as an effect of the presence of the
faculty of sensation, for this ignores the feeling agent back of it. Nor is it the conjunction of soul
and body, for unless the faculty of sensation operate, that aggregate could not feel, and it would
then no longer include as elements either the soul, or the faculty of sensation.

SOUL-LIGHT FORMS ANIMAL NATURE.

7. The aggregate results from the presence of the soul, not indeed that the soul enters into the
aggregate, or constitutes one of its elements. Out of this organized body, and of a kind of light
furnished by herself, the soul forms the animal nature, which differs both from soul and body,
and to which belongs sensation, as well as all the passions attributed to the animal.1199296

RELATION OF ANIMAL TO HUMAN NATURE.

If now we should be asked how it happened that "we" feel, we answer: We are not separated
from the organism, although within us exist principles297 of a higher kind which concur in
forming the manifold complex of human nature.

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSATION.

As to the faculty of sensation which is peculiar to the soul, it cannot be the power of perceiving
the sense-objects themselves, but only their typical forms, impressed on the animal by sensation.
These have already somewhat of the intelligible nature; the exterior sensation peculiar to the
animal is only the image of the sensation peculiar to the soul; which, by its very essence is truer
and more real, since it consists only in contemplating images while remaining impassible.298
Ratiocination, opinion and thought, which principally constitute us,299 deal exclusively with
these images, by which the soul has the power of directing the organism.

DISTINCTION IN THE WHOLE ORGANISM.

No doubt these faculties are "ours," but "we" are the superior principle which, from above,
directs the organising but in this whole we shall have to distinguish an inferior part, mingled with
the body, and a superior part, which is the true man. The former (irrational soul) constitutes the
beast, as for instance, the lion; the latter is the rational soul, which constitutes man. In every
ratiocination, it is "we" who reason, because ratiocination is the peculiar activity (or, energy) of
the soul.1200300

INDIVIDUAL RELATION WITH COSMIC INTELLECT.

8. What is our relation with the Intelligence? I mean not the habit imparted to the soul by the
intellect, but the absolute Intelligence;301 which, though above us, is also common to all men, or
peculiar to each of them; in other words, is simultaneously common and individual. Common
because it is indivisible, one and everywhere the same; particular because each soul possesses it
entirely in the first or rational soul. Likewise, we possess the ideas in a double manner; in the
soul they appear developed and separate; in the intelligence they exist all together.302

INDIVIDUAL RELATION WITH GOD AND COSMIC SOUL.

What is our relation with God? He hovers over the intelligible nature, and real being; while we,
being on the third rank as counted from thence, are of the undivided universal Soul, which303 is
indivisible because she forms part of the upper world, while she is divisible in regard to the
bodies. She is indeed divisible in regard to the bodies, since she permeates each of them as far as
they live; but at the same time she is indivisible because she is one in the universe.

SOUL GIVES LIFE TO PSYCHOLOGIC ELEMENTS.

She seems to be present in the bodies, and illuminates them, making living beings out of them.
This occurs not as a mixture of herself and bodies, but by remaining individual, giving out
images of herself,304 just as a single face in several mirrors. Of these, the first is sensation,
which resides in the common part, the organism; then come all the other forms of the1201 soul

forms which successively derive each from the other, down to the faculties of generation and
increase, and generally, the power of producing and fashioning that which is different from
selfwhich indeed the soul does as soon as she turns towards the object she fashions.305

ORIGIN OF EVILS, SINS, AND ERRORS.

9. In this conception of the soul, she will be foreign to the cause of the evils which the man does
and suffers. These refer to the organism, that common part, understood as above. Although
opinion be deceptive, and makes us commit much evil, and although opinion and ratiocination
both belong to the soul, yet the soul may be sinless, inasmuch as we are only mastered by the
worse part of our nature.306 Often, indeed, we yield to appetite, to anger, and we are the dupes
of some imperfect image. The conception of false things, the imagination307 does not await the
judgment of discursive reason. There are still other cases where we yield to the lower part of
ourselves; in sensation, for instance, we see things that do not exist, because we rely on the
common sensation of soul and body, before having discerned its objects by discursive reason.

INTELLECT DID NOT GRASP THE OBJECT ITSELF.

In this case did the intellect grasp the object itself? Certainly not; and, therefore, it is not the
intellect that is responsible for the error. We say as much for the "we," according as we will or
will not have perceived the object, either in the intellect, or in ourselves;for it is possible to
possess an object without having it actually present.
1202

TRUE CONCEPTION ACT OF INTUITION.

We have distinguished from things common to soul and body, those peculiar to the soul. The
former are corporeal, and cannot be produced without the organs, while the latter's occurrence is
independent of the body. Ratiocination276 is the essential and constitutive faculty of the real
soul, because it determines the typical forms derived from sensation, it looks, it somehow feels
the images, and really is the dominating part of the soul. The conception of true things is the act
of intuitive thoughts.

MODIFICATIONS DERIVE FROM FOREIGN SOURCES.

There is often a resemblance and community between exterior and interior things; in this case the
soul will not any the less exercise herself on herself, will not any the less remain within herself,
without feeling any passive modification. As to the modifications and troubles which may arise
in us, they derive from foreign elements, attached to the soul, as well as from passions
experienced by the above described common part.

DISTINCTIONS IN "WE" AND THE "REAL MAN."

10. But if "we" are the "soul," we must admit that when we experience passions, the soul
experiences them also; that when we act, the soul acts. We may even say that the common part is

also "ours," especially before philosophy separated the soul from the body;308 in fact, we even
say "we" suffer, when our body suffers. "We" is, therefore, taken in a double sense: either the
soul with the animal part, or living body; or simply the upper part; while the vivified body is a
wild beast.
1203

REAL MAN DIFFERS FROM BODY.

The real Man differs from the body; pure from every passion, he possesses the intellectual
virtues, virtues which reside in the soul, either when she is separated from the body, or when she
isas usually here belowonly separable by philosophy; for even when she seems to us
entirely separated, the soul is, in this life, ever accompanied by a lower309 sensitive part, or part
of growth, which she illuminates.310

FUNCTION OF THE COMMON PART.

As to the virtues which consist not in wisdom, but in ethical habits and austerities, they belong to
the common part. To it alone, also, are vices to be imputed, inasmuch as it exclusively
experiences envy, jealousy and cowardly pity. Friendships, however, should be referred some to
the common part, and others to the pure Soul or inner Man. In childhood, the faculties of the
composite common part are exercised, but rarely is it illuminated from above. When this superior
principle seems inactive in relation to us, it is actively engaged towards the upper intelligible
world; and it only begins to be active towards us when it advances as far as311 (fancy or
representation), the middle part of our being.

THE SUPERIOR PRINCIPLE NOT ALWAYS UTILIZED.

But is the superior principle not "ours" also? Surely, but only when we are conscious thereof; for
we do not always utilize our possessions. This utilization, however, takes place when we direct
this middle part of our being towards either the upper or lower worlds, and when we actualize
into energies what before was1204 only an (Aristotelian) "potentiality" or a (Stoic) "habit."

THE ANIMATING PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS.

We might define the animating principle of animals. If it be true, according to common opinion,
that animal bodies contain human souls that have sinned, the separable part of these souls does
not properly belong to these bodies; although these souls assist these bodies, the souls are not
actually present to them.312 In them the sensation is common to the image of the soul and to the
body;but to the latter only in so far as it is organized and fashioned by the image of the soul.
As to the animals into whose bodies no human soul entered, they are produced by an
illumination of the universal Soul.

THE SOUL BOTH IMPASSIBLE AND PUNISHABLE.

12. There is a contradiction between our own former opinion that the soul cannot sin, and the
universally admitted belief that the soul commits sins, expiates them, undergoes punishments in
Hades, and that she passes into new bodies. Although we seem to be in a dilemma, forcing us to
choose between them, it might be possible to show they are not incompatible.

PHILOSOPHIC SEPARATION REFERS NOT ONLY TO BODY, BUT TO

PASSIBLE ACCRETIONS.
When we attribute infallibility to the soul, we are supposing her to be one and simple, identifying
the soul with soul essence. When, however, we consider her capable of sin, we are looking at her
as a complex, of her essence and of another kind of soul which can experience brutal passions.
The soul, thus, is a combination1205 of various elements; and it is not the pure soul, but this
combination, which experiences passions, commits sins, and undergoes punishments. It was this
conception of the soul Plato was referring to when he said:313 "We see the soul as we see
Glaucus, the marine deity," and he adds, "He who would know the nature of the soul herself
should, after stripping her of all that is foreign to her, in her, especially consider her philosophic
love for truth; and see to what things she attaches herself, and by virtue of whose affinities she is
what she is." We must, therefore, differentiate the soul's life acts from that which is punished,
and when we speak of philosophy's separation of the soul, we mean a detaching not only from
the body, but also from what has been added to the soul.

HOW THE ANIMAL NATURE IS GENERATED.

This addition occurs during her generation, or rather in the generation of another ideal form of
soul, the "animal nature." Elsewhere314 this generation has been explained thus. When the soul
descends, at the very moment when she inclines towards the body, she produces an image of
herself. The soul, however, must not be blamed for sending this image into the body. For the soul
to incline towards the body is for the soul to shed light on what is below her; and this is no more
sinful than to produce a shadow. That which is blamable is the illuminated object; for if it did not
exist, there would be nothing to illuminate. The descent of the soul, or her inclination to the
body, means only that she communicates life to what she illuminates. She drives away her
image, or lets it vanish, if nothing receptive is in its vicinity; the soul lets the image vanish, not
because she is separatedfor to speak accurately, she is not separated from the bodybut
because she is no longer here below; and1206 she is no longer below when she is entirely
occupied in contemplating the intelligible world.

THE DOUBLE HERCULES SYMBOLIZES THE SOUL.

(Homer) seems to admit this distinction in speaking of Hercules, when he sends the image of this
hero into Hades, and still he locates him within the abode of the deities315;it is at least the
idea implied in this double assertion that Hercules is in Hades and that he is in Olympus. The
poet, therefore, distinguished in him two elements. We might perhaps expound the passage as
follows: Hercules had an active virtue, and because of his great qualities was judged worthy of
being classified with the deities, but as he possessed only the active virtue, and not the
contemplative virtue, he could not be admitted into Heaven entirely; while he is in heaven, there
is something of him in Hades.316

RELATION OF THE "WE" AND THE "SOUL."

13. Is it "we" or the "soul" which makes these researches? It is we, by means of the soul. The
cause of this is, not we who consider the soul because we possess her, but that the soul considers
herself. This need not imply motion, as it is generally understood, but a motion entirely different
from that of the bodies, and which is its own life.

INTELLIGENCE NOT OURS, BUT WE.

Intelligence277 also is ours, but only in the sense that the soul is intelligent; for us, the (higher)
life consists in a better thinking. The soul enjoys this life either when she thinks intelligible
objects, or when the intellect is both a part of ourselves, and something superior towards which
we ascend.