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Passages similar to: The Six Enneads — Problems of the Soul (2)
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Neoplatonic
The Six Enneads
Problems of the Soul (2) (45)
From this discussion it becomes perfectly clear that the individual member of the All contributes to that All in the degree of its kind and condition; thus it acts and is acted upon. In any particular animal each of the limbs and organs, in the measure of its kind and purpose, aids the entire being by service performed and counts in rank and utility: it gives what is in it its gift and takes from its fellows in the degree of receptive power belonging to its kind; there is something like a common sensitiveness linking the parts, and in the orders in which each of the parts is also animate, each will have, in addition to its rank as part, the very particular functions of a living being. We have learned, further, something of our human standing; we know that we too accomplish within the All a work not confined to the activity and receptivity of body in relation to body; we know that we bring to it that higher nature of ours, linked as we are by affinities within us towards the answering affinities outside us; becoming by our soul and the conditions of our kind thus linked- or, better, being linked by Nature- with our next highest in the celestial or demonic realm, and thence onwards with those above the Celestials, we cannot fail to manifest our quality. Still, we are not all able to offer the same gifts or to accept identically: if we do not possess good, we cannot bestow it; nor can we ever purvey any good thing to one that has no power of receiving good. Anyone that adds his evil to the total of things is known for what he is and, in accordance with his kind, is pressed down into the evil which he has made his own, and hence, upon death, goes to whatever region fits his quality- and all this happens under the pull of natural forces. For the good man, the giving and the taking and the changes of state go quite the other way; the particular tendencies of the nature, we may put it, transpose the cords . Thus this universe of ours is a wonder of power and wisdom, everything by a noiseless road coming to pass according to a law which none may elude- which the base man never conceives though it is leading him, all unknowingly, to that place in the All where his lot must be cast- which the just man knows, and, knowing, sets out to the place he must, understanding, even as he begins the journey, where he is to be housed at the end, and having the good hope that he will be with gods. In a living being of small scope the parts vary but slightly, and have but a faint individual consciousness, and, unless possibly in a few and for a short time, are not themselves alive. But in a living universe, of high expanse, where every entity has vast scope and many of the members have life, there must be wider movement and greater changes. We see the sun and the moon and the other stars shifting place and course in an ordered progression. It is therefore within reason that the souls, also, of the All should have their changes, not retaining unbrokenly the same quality, but ranged in some analogy with their action and experience- some taking rank as head and some as foot in a disposition consonant with the Universal Being which has its degrees in better and less good. A soul, which neither chooses the highest that is here, nor has lent itself to the lowest, is one which has abandoned another, a purer, place, taking this sphere in free election. The punishments of wrong-doing are like the treatment of diseased parts of the body- here, medicines to knit sundered flesh; there, amputations; elsewhere, change of environment and condition- and the penalties are planned to bring health to the All by settling every member in the fitting place: and this health of the All requires that one man be made over anew and another, sick here, be taken hence to where he shall be weakly no longer.
Neoplatonic
FROM HIPPODAMUS, THE THURIAN, IN HIS TREATISE ON FELICITY. (4)
The truth of this also may be seen in the nature itself of animals. For if animal had no existence, there would neither be eye, nor mouth, nor ear....
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Neoplatonic
IX, Chapter VII (1)
From these things, therefore, it is easy to answer your next question. For the peculiar dæmon does not rule over one of the parts in us, but, in...
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Neoplatonic
FROM THEAGES, IN HIS TREATISE ON THE VIRTUES. (2)
Since, however, of the parts of the soul, one is the leader, but the other follows, and the virtues and the vices subsist about these, and in these;...
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Neoplatonic
I, Chapter V (2)
In souls, however, which rule over bodies, and precedaneously pay attention to them, and which, prior to generation, have by themselves a perpetual...
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Neoplatonic
I, Chapter X (2)
What does such a soul want with the generation which is in pleasure, or the restitution which is in it to a natural condition, since such a soul is ab...
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Christian Mysticism
The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Caput III (11)
We will now explain, in detail, to the best of our ability, certain works of God, of which we spoke. For I am not competent to sing all, much less to...
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Neoplatonic
V, Chapter II (1)
The hostile opposition, therefore, in the things that are now proposed, may be easily dissolved by demonstrating the dignity of wholes with respect...
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Neoplatonic
I, Chapter VIII (1)
To which may be added, that it is dreadfully absurd to ascribe to bodies a principal power of giving a specific distinction to the first causes of the...
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Neoplatonic
V, Chapter III (1)
Here, therefore, the same reasoning is likewise sufficient. For with us the enjoyment of bodies which once were united to soul, impresses in us...
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Neoplatonic
IV, Chapter V (2)
What also hinders, but that to each thing by itself, and in conjunction with the whole alliance of souls, justice may in a very transcendent manner...
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Hermetic
10. The Key (22)
Wherefore, my son, thou shouldst give praise to God and pray that thou mayst have thy mind Good Mind. It is, then, to a better state the soul doth...
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Christian Mysticism
The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
Chapter 25: The Suffering, Dying, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God: Also of his Ascension into Heaven, and sitting at the Right-hand of God his Father. The Gate of our Misery; and also the strong Gate of the Divine Power in his Love. (1)
IF we consider ourselves in our right Reason, and behold the Kingdom of this World, in which we stand with our Flesh and Blood, also with our Reason...
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Neoplatonic
I, Chapter VIII (3)
It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion...
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Hermetic
10. The Key (19)
The soul in man, however - not every soul, but one that pious is - is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if...
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Christian Mysticism
The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite
On Divine Names, Caput V (7)
There is nothing out of place then, that, by ascending from obscure images to the Cause of all, we should contemplate, with supermundane eyes, all thi...
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Neoplatonic
V, Chapter XX (1)
Being impelled, therefore, from another principle, viz. from the world and the mundane Gods, from the arrangement of the four elements in the world,...
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Neoplatonic
I, Chapter V (4)
You must not, therefore, think that this division is the peculiarity of powers or energies, or of essence; nor assuming it separately, must you...
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Christian Mysticism
The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite
On Divine Names, Caput IV (2)
Thence come to them the supermundane orders, the unions amongst themselves, the mutual penetrations, the unconfused distinctions, the powers...
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Hermetic
Section II (1)
[Trismegistus] The soul of every man, O [my] Asclepius, is deathless; yet not all in like fashion, but some in one way or [one] time, some in...
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Neoplatonic
V, Chapter XV (1)
Let us then, in the next place, direct our attention to that which accords with what has been before said, and with our twofold condition of being....
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