"When warmth comes in to make anything warm, must there needs be something to warm the source of the warmth ?
"If fire is to warm something else, must there be a fire to warm that fire?
"Against the first illustration it may be retorted that the source of the warmth does already contain warmth, not by infusion but by an essential phase of its nature, so that, if the analogy is to hold, the argument would make Virtue something communicated to the Soul but an essential constituent of the Principle from which the Soul attaining Likeness absorbs it.
"Against the illustration drawn from fire, it may be urged that the analogy would make that Principle identical with Virtue, whereas we hold it to be something higher.
"The objection would be valid if what the Soul takes in were one and the same with the source, but in fact, virtue is one thing, the source of virtue is quite another. The material house is not identical with the house conceived in the intellect, and yet stands in its likeness : the material house has distribution and order while the pure idea is not constituted by any such elements; distribution, order, symmetry are not parts of an idea.
"So with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the Existences There having no need of harmony, order, distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and nonetheless, it is by our possession of virtue that we become like Them.
"Thus much to show that the Principle that we attain Likeness by virtue in no way involves virtue in the Supreme. But we have not merely to make a formal demonstration : we must persuade as well as demonstrate."
P.16-17, "The Virtues," THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)
Thursday, July 14, 2016
THE ENNEADS by Origen
"When warmth comes in to make anything warm, must there needs be something to warm the source of the warmth ?
"If fire is to warm something else, must there be a fire to warm that fire?
"Against the first illustration it may be retorted that the source of the warmth does already contain warmth, not by infusion but by an essential phase of its nature, so that, if the analogy is to hold, the argument would make Virtue something communicated to the Soul but an essential constituent of the Principle from which the Soul attaining Likeness absorbs it.
"Against the illustration drawn from fire, it may be urged that the analogy would make that Principle identical with Virtue, whereas we hold it to be something higher.
"The objection would be valid if what the Soul takes in were one and the same with the source, but in fact, virtue is one thing, the source of virtue is quite another. The material house is not identical with the house conceived in the intellect, and yet stands in its likeness : the material house has distribution and order while the pure idea is not constituted by any such elements; distribution, order, symmetry are not parts of an idea.
"So with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the Existences There having no need of harmony, order, distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and nonetheless, it is by our possession of virtue that we become like Them.
"Thus much to show that the Principle that we attain Likeness by virtue in no way involves virtue in the Supreme. But we have not merely to make a formal demonstration : we must persuade as well as demonstrate."
P.16-17, "The Virtues," THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)
