Plotinus ENNEADS - THE SIXTH ENNEAD Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

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THE SIXTH ENNEAD:   1) ON THE KINDS OF BEING,   2) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙ,   3) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙΙ,   4) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT,   5) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT ΙΙ,   6) ON NUMBERS,   7) HOW THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE IDEAL-FORMS CAME INTO BEING: AND UPON THE GOOD,   8) ON FREE-WILL AND THE WILL OF THE ONE,   9) ON THE GOOD, OR THE ONE

128 pages - You are on Page 55

2. In asserting that Being is not a unity, we do not mean to imply a definite number of existences; the number may well be infinite: we mean simply that it is many as well as one, that it is, so to speak, a diversified unity, a plurality in unity.

It follows that either the unity so regarded is a unity of genus under which the Existents, involving as they do plurality as well as unity, stand as species; or that while there are more genera than one, yet all are subordinate to a unity; or there may be more genera than one, though no one genus is subordinate to any other, but all with their own subordinates — whether these be lesser genera, or species with individuals for their subordinates — all are elements in one entity, and from their totality the Intellectual realm — that which we know as Being — derives its constitution.

If this last is the truth, we have here not merely genera, but genera which are at the same time principles of Being. They are genera because they have subordinates — other genera, and successively species and individuals; they are also principles, since from this plurality Being takes its rise, constituted in its entirety from these its elements.

Suppose, however, a greater number of origins which by their mere totality comprised, without possessing any subordinates, the whole of Being; these would be first-principles but not genera: it would be as if one constructed the sensible world from the four elements — fire and the others; these elements would be first principles, but they would not be genera, unless the term “genus” is to be used equivocally.

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