Plotinus (MacKenna)/Volume 1

by Plotinus

Layout 2

THE LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHICAL
TRANSLATIONS. PLOTINUS: THE
ETHICAL TREATISES, VOLUME I.

 

Do ċum glóirе Dé & onóra na h-Éireann,
i n’Doṁnaċ-Droc Ḋaile-Áṫa-Cliaṫ ḋom,
Stíofán mac-Enna. Nodlaig 1916.

 

LOTINUS: THE ETHICAL TREATISES BEING THE TREATISES OF THE FIRST ENNEAD WITH PORPHYRY'S LIFE OF PLOTINUS, AND THE PRELLER-RITTER EXTRACTS FORMING A CONSPECTUS OF THE PLOTINIAN SYSTEM, TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY STEPHEN MACKENNA

 

PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W, 1. 1917

 

Of this Edition 1000 copies have
been printed on pure rag paper.

 

CONTENTS

		Page
Porphyry's Life of Plotinus		1
The Books of the First Ennead
I.	The Animate and the Man	29
II.	On Virtue	41
III.	Dialectic (or the Upward Way)	50
IV.	On Happiness (or the Authentic Good of Life)	56
V.	On Happiness and Extension of Time	72
VI.	On Beauty	77
VII.	On the Primal Good and its Secondary Forms	89
VIII.	On Evil, Its Nature and Source	92
IX.	"The Reasoned Dismissal"	108
Bibliography and Explanatory Matter
Text, Previous Translations		113
Method of this Translation		114
Commentaries		116
Terminology		117
The Divine Names		118
The One		118
The Intellectual-Principle		119
The All-Soul		120
The Divine-Triad as a Unity		120
The Gods and Daimones		121
Man: His Nature, Powers and Destiny		121
Evil and Matter		123
Morality		123
The Term and the Way		124
Minor Points of Terminology		124
The Preller-Ritter Conspectus of the Plotinian System
I.	The Fall of the Souls and Their Return	130
	Free-Will	131
II.	The Grandeur of the Soul	131
	All Souls as One Soul	132
III.	The Soul in Relation to the Intellectual-Principle	134
	Emanation, Its Nature and Mode	135
	Matter in the Divine Sphere	135
IV.	The Intellectual-Principle in Relation to the One	136
	The Categories of the Divine	137
	Reasoning and Intellection	137
	Identity of Divine Mind and Divine Thoughts	138
	The Act of the Intellectual-Principle and of the Soul	139
	Universal Contemplation	139
V.	The Origin of Multiplicity	140
	The Need of the One Transcending the Multiple	140
VI.	The Absolute Transcendency of the One	141
	The One Stated only by Negation	141
VII.	Why the Supreme is s Triad	143
	The Soul's Intellective-Nature	144
	The Ideas in the Intellectual-Principle and in Soul	144
	The Presence of the One in the Lower Existents	145
VIII.	The Soul and the World of Nature	146
	Fall of the Soul	147
IX.	Matter	148
X.	Soul and Body	148
	Eternity of the World	149
	Fall of the Soul Denied	150
	Evil and Ugliness	150
	The World Animated	150
	Prayer and Magic	151
	Temples and Statues	151
XI.	How Souls Take Body	152
	Fall of the Soul	152
	Gods and Daimones	152
	Astrology	153
	Celestial Man	153
XII.	The Soul After Death	153
	Body is in Soul, not Soul in Body	153
	Sensation and the True Man	154
	Virtue and Vice	154
	The Drama of Life	154
XIII.	Likeness to God	155
	Purification and Perfection	155
XIV.	The Vision of the Supreme	156