"Problems of the Soul"

“The souls go forth neither under compulsion nor of freewill; or, at least, freedom here is not to be regarded as action upon preference; it is more like such a leap of nature as moves most men to the instinctive desire of sexual union, or in the case of some, fine conduct ; the motive lies elsewhere than in the reason: like is destined unfailingly to like, and each moves hither or thither at its fixed moment. “Even the Intellectual-Principle, which is before all the Cosmos, has, it also, its destiny, that of abiding intact above, and of giving downwards; what it sends down is the particular whose existence is implied in the law (or decreed system) of the universal, for the universal broods closely over the particular ; it is not from without that the law derives the power by which it is executed; on the contrary, the law is given in the entities upon whom it falls; these bear it about with them. Let the moment arrive, and what it decrees will be brought to act by those beings in whom it resides; they fulfill it because they contain it; it prevails because it is within them; it becomes like a heavy burden, and sets up in them a painful longing to enter the realm to which they are bidden from within.” P. 267, “Problems of the Soul,” THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)