Excerpts from “The Six Enneads” by Plotinus (vegetarian) – The Soul and Virtue, Part 2 of 2

“And the principle that reasons out these matters? Is it We or the Soul? We, but by the Soul.” “And Intellection in us is twofold: since the Soul is intellective, and Intellection is the highest phase of life, we have Intellection both by the characteristic Act of our Soul and by the Act of the Intellectual-Principle upon us – for this Intellectual-Principle is part of us no less than the Soul, and towards it we are ever rising.”

“Since Evil is here, ‘haunting this world by necessary law,’ and it is the Soul’s design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence.

But what is this escape? ‘In attaining Likeness to God,’ we read. And this is explained as ‘becoming just and holy, living by wisdom,’ the entire nature grounded in Virtue.”

“[…] 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 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 or distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and, none the less, it is by our possession of virtue that we become like to Them.

Thus much to show that the principle that we attain Likeness by virtue in no way involves the existence of virtue in the Supreme. But we have not merely to make a formal demonstration: we must persuade as well as demonstrate.”