1.2 (19) On Virtues

§1.2.1. Since evils exist in the sensible world and ‘of necessity circulate in this place’,¹ and the soul wants to flee evils, it should flee from the sensible world. What, then, is this flight? Plato says that it is assimilating oneself to god. And this would occur if we were to become ‘just and pious with wisdom’² that is, generally, if we were in a virtuous state. If,5 then, it is by virtue that we are assimilated to god, are we assimilated to one who has virtue? Moreover, to which god will it be? Would it be, then, to one who seemed to have these virtues more, that is, to the soul of the cosmos, and to that part of it which governs, in which there exists a marvellous wisdom?³ For it is reasonable that, because we live in the sensible world, we should assimilate ourselves to this god.

First, however, it is questionable if all the virtues exist in this god, for10 example, whether it has self-control or⁴ courage as one to whom there is nothing fearful.⁵ For there is nothing outside it. Nor could something pleasurable which it does not already have present itself as an object of appetite for it to have or want to have. But if it is in a state of desiring the intelligibles which our souls desire, too, it is also clear that the cosmos15 and the virtues in us come from the intelligible world.

Is it the case, then, that the divine has these virtues?

In fact, it is not reasonable that it should have the civic virtues,⁶ I mean, wisdom in the faculty of calculative reasoning, courage in the spirited faculty, self-control in the agreement or concord of the spirited faculty with the faculty of calculative reasoning, and justice consisting in20 each faculty of the soul doing its own job of ruling and being ruled.⁷ If this is so, then it is not according to the civic virtues that we are assimilated, is it, but rather according to those which are greater though they bear the identical name?

But if it is according to other virtues, is the assimilation not according to the civic virtues at all?

In fact, it would be irrational to maintain that we are not in any way assimilated according to these – legend at least has it that those who practised these are divine, too, and should be said somehow or other to25 be assimilated according to them – but that the actual assimilation is according to the greater virtues. At least, it follows either way that god possesses virtues even if not these. If, then, someone concedes that, even if god does not have these, it is possible to assimilate oneself to god, and we are in different states with regard to different virtues, nothing prevents us, even if we are not assimilated with regard to virtues, from30 assimilating by our virtues to that which does not possess virtue. How? In this way.

If something becomes hot by the presence of heat, is it also necessary that that from which the heat comes be heated? And if something is hot by the presence of fire, is it necessary that the fire itself should be heated by the presence of fire? In regard to the first point, one might say that in35 the fire there is heat, though it is intrinsic. The consequence of this, if the analogy holds, is that virtue has to be added to the soul but is intrinsic to that which the soul imitates. In regard to the point about fire, one might reply that then the divine just is virtue. We, though,40 judge it to be greater than virtue.⁸ But if that in which the soul participates were identical with that from which it comes, it should have been expressed in that way. Now, though, we are saying that the divine is one thing and virtue another. For the sensible house is not identical with the intelligible house, even though it is made to be like it.⁹ And the sensible house participates in order and arrangement, whereas in the intelligible world, in the house’s expressed principle, there is not order or arrangement45 or symmetry. In the same way, then, we participate in order and arrangement and consonance coming from the intelligible world, and these, when in the sensible world, are virtue; but Beings in the intelligible world do not themselves need consonance or order or arrangement, so that they also have no need for virtue. Nonetheless, we are assimilated to the things in the intelligible world because of the presence50 in us of virtue.

So much for the fact that there is no need for virtue in the intelligible world even if we are made to be assimilated by virtue. But one should add persuasion to the argument and not rely on its force alone.

§1.2.2. So, first, we need to grasp the virtues according to which we claim to be assimilated in order that, again, we may discover the very thing whose imitation in us is virtue, but which in the intelligible world is a sort of archetype and not virtue. This will show how there are two types of assimilation: the first requires that there be something identical5 in the things that are the same, such that their sameness derived equally from that which is identical. But in cases where one thing is assimilated to another, but that other is primary, the relationship is not reciprocated, and the primary thing is not said to be the same as the other. In this case, the assimilation should be taken in another sense, not requiring the identical form, but rather a different one in each case, if10 indeed it is assimilated in this other sense.

What, then, is virtue exactly – universally and in particular? The argument will be clearer if we consider each particular virtue, for in this way what is common to them, that according to which they are virtues, will easily be made evident.

So, the civic virtues, which we have spoken of above, do really give order to us and make us better; they limit and give measure to our15 appetites and, generally, give measure to our affective states and remove our false beliefs by means of that which is generally better and by imposing limits on us and by the fact that that which is measured is placed outside the things that are unmeasured and unlimited. And these virtues, which are themselves limited insofar as they are measures in ‘matter’, that is, soul, are assimilated to the measure that is in the intelligible world and they have a trace of the best that is there.¹⁰ For20 matter, being in every way unmeasured, is unassimilated to everything. But insofar as it participates in form, to that extent is it assimilated to that formless reality [the Good].¹¹ Things that are closer participate more. Soul is nearer than body, and more closely related. Due to this, it25 participates more, so that, having appeared to us as a god, it deceives us into thinking that it is the entirety of god. Those, then, who are virtuous in this way are assimilated to god.

§1.2.3. But since Plato reveals the other type of assimilation as belonging to a greater virtue,¹² we should speak about that. In this account, the substantiality of civic virtue will also be made even clearer, as well as the substantiality of the greater virtue, and, generally, the fact that there is a type of virtue different from the civic. Given that Plato is indeed saying5 that assimilation to god is a flight from the sensible world,¹³ and does not name the virtues of civic life unqualifiedly ‘virtue’ but adds the qualification ‘civic’, and given that elsewhere he says that all the virtues are purifications,¹⁴ it is clear that he maintains that there are two sorts of virtue, and does not think that assimilation is according to civic virtue.10 In what sense, then, should we say that virtues are purifications, and, once we are purified, in what sense are we assimilated to the highest degree?

In fact, since the soul is evil when it is enmeshed in the body, and has come to experience the same things as it, and has come to believe the same things, it would be good, that is, it would have virtue if it were not to believe these things, but were to act alone – which is what15 thinking and being wise is – and not feel the same things as the body – which is what self-control is – and not fear being separated from the body – which is what it is to be courageous – and if reason or intellect were to lead it, with the appetites not opposing it – which is what justice would be. Indeed, as for such a disposition of the soul, one in which one thinks and is unaffected in this way, if someone were to say20 that it is a kind of assimilation to god, he would not be mistaken. For the divine is pure and this is its sort of activity, so that someone who imitates it has wisdom.

Why, then, is the divine not disposed in this way?

In fact, it does not have a disposition; disposition belongs to soul. And the soul thinks in one way, but, among the things in the intelligible world, one sort [Intellect] thinks in a different way, and the other [the25 One] does not think at all. But, again, we may ask if the word ‘thinking’ is equivocal? Not at all. But there is a primary type of thinking and one derived from it, which is different. For as a spoken word is an imitation of a word in the soul, so a word in the soul is an imitation of something in something different. As, then, that which is in an utterance is divided from that which is in the soul, so, too, is that which is in soul divided,30 being an interpretation of that which is prior to it. Virtue belongs to soul, not to Intellect nor to that which transcends it.

§1.2.4. We should, then, examine if the purification is identical with this sort of virtue, or if the purification comes first and then the virtue follows, that is, whether the virtue lies in the process of being purified or in the state one is in once one has been purified.

Virtue in the process of being purified would be less complete than in the state one is in once having been purified, for having been purified is5 in a way already a completion. But to have been purified is the elimination of something alien, whereas that which is good is different from this.

In fact, if the good were there prior to the impure state, then the purification would do the job; but if the purification will do the job, what remains will be that which is good, not the purification.

And what it is that remains should be examined. For perhaps the10 nature that remained would not be that which is good after all; for it would not have been there in the [unpurified] evil. Should we, then, say that this nature is Good-like?¹⁵

In fact, we should say that it was not up to staying in a truly good state, for it was naturally inclined to both good and evil. Its good, then, will be associating with what is akin to it, and its evil associating with the15 opposite. It will be associating, then, once it has been purified, but it will be doing so having turned itself around. Does it turn around after the purification, then?

In fact, after the purification it has already turned around. Is this, then, its virtue?

In fact, its virtue is what comes to it from turning around. What, then, is this? A seeing and an impression of that which has been seen embedded in it and now active – like seeing in relation to the object20 seen.¹⁶

Did it, therefore, neither have them nor recollect them?

In fact, it had things that were not active, but dispersed and unilluminated. If they are to be illuminated and it is to know them as being present, it must impel itself towards that which does the illuminating. And it did not have the things themselves, but impressions. It must, then, harmonize the impressions with the true Beings of which they are impressions. And perhaps it is in this sense that this nature ‘has’ them,25 because the Intellect is not alien to it, especially not when it looks towards the Intellect. If this were not so, the Intellect would be alien even when it is present. For even areas of scientific understanding in which we are not wholly engaged are alien.

§1.2.5. But the extent of purification should be addressed. For in this way, it will be clear what the assimilation is to and with what god we are identified. And we should especially examine purification in regard to anger and appetite and the rest, pain and related feelings, and to what extent separation from the body is possible. Perhaps the soul actually5 collects itself in some sort of place apart from the body, where it is incapable of being affected, producing only those perceptions of pleasures that are inevitable, using them as treatments and relief from pain so that it should not be disturbed – eliminating pains, and, if that is10 not possible, bearing them easily and lessening them by not suffering alongside the body. It would also eliminate anger as much as possible and, if possible, entirely, but if not, at least not flaring up along with the body, but treating it as the involuntary act of something else, and reckoning what is involuntary to be small and weak. It eliminates fear15 altogether. For it will be fearful of nothing – though the involuntary is here, too – except when fear serves as a warning.

And what about appetite? Clearly, it will not be for anything base, and the soul itself will not have the appetite for food and drink needed for replenishment. Nor will it have appetite for sexual pleasures.¹⁷ If it does have appetite, it will be for natural things, I think, and will not be involuntary. But if it does have this, it will only have it to the extent of20 a spontaneous impression in the imagination, and no more.

In general, the soul will be pure of all these, and it will want to make the non-rational pure, too, so that it is not disturbed. But if it is, it will not be disturbed excessively; rather, its disturbances will be few, and immediately dislodged by the proximity of the [faculty of calculative reasoning]. It is just as if someone with a wise person living nearby25 should benefit from the proximity of wisdom, either becoming like him or being ashamed of daring to do something that the wise person would not want him to do. There will, then, be no conflict. For it is sufficient that reason is present, which the inferior element will so stand in awe of that the inferior element itself will be disgusted if the soul were to be moved at all because it did not remain still when the master was present,30 and will reproach itself for its own weakness.

§1.2.6. There is, then, no moral error in anything of this sort for a human being, but only [the occasion for] morally perfect acting.¹⁸ The focus is not on being exempt from moral error, but on being god. If, then, there were to remain anything involuntary in their actions, a human being in this state would be a god or a daemon by being double,5 or rather by having with himself someone else with another virtue. If he had nothing of this sort, he would be only a god, a god among those following the first god.¹⁹ For he himself is a god who came from the intelligible world, and what he is in himself, if he remains as he was when he came, is in the intelligible world. But as for the one with whom he dwells when he came here, he will assimilate this one to himself as much as he is able so that, if possible, he is impervious or at least incapable of10 doing those things that do not seem right to the master.

What, then, are the particular virtues for such a person?

In fact, theoretical and practical wisdom consist in the contemplation of that which Intellect possesses, though Intellect has them by touching.²⁰ Each of these is twofold: one is in Intellect, one in Soul. And in the intelligible world, there is no virtue; virtue is in the soul.15 What, then, is in the intelligible world? Its own activity, that is, what it really is. But in the sensible world, when what comes from the intelligible world is found in another, that is virtue. For neither Justice itself, nor any of the others, is a virtue, but rather a paradigm. That which comes from it in the soul is a virtue. For virtue is someone’s virtue. But that which is in itself belongs to itself, and not to something else.

But if justice is indeed taking care of one’s own affairs,²¹ is it always20 found in a multiplicity of parts?

In fact, the virtue is in a multiplicity when the parts are many, but taking care of one’s own business is wholly present even if there were to be a unity. Indeed, true Justice itself belongs to a self-related unity in which there are no parts. So, the justice in the soul that is greater is activity in relation to intellect, and the greater self-control is a turning25 inward towards intellect, and the greater courage is a lack of affection inasmuch as there is an assimilation of itself to the unaffected nature towards which it is looking. This assimilation comes from virtue, and ensures that the soul does not share affections with the inferior element with which it lives.

§1.2.7. The virtues themselves in the soul are, then, mutually implicating just as are their paradigms prior to virtue in Intellect.²² For intellection in the intelligible world is scientific understanding or theoretical wisdom, and being self-related is self-control, and taking care of one’s own affairs is one’s proper function, and courage is in a way the immaterial5 state²³ of remaining pure in oneself. In soul, then, theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom in relation to Intellect are the act of seeing. These are virtues belonging to it, for it itself is not these virtues, as is the case in the intelligible world. And the others follow similarly. And as for purification, if indeed all the virtues are purifications, in the sense that they are states of having been purified, purification necessarily10 produces all of them; otherwise, none would be complete.

Whoever has the greater ones will have the lesser in potency, too, necessarily, though one who has the lesser will not necessarily have the greater. This is actually in a nutshell the life of the virtuous person. Whether he who has the greater has the lesser in actuality, too, or has them in another manner, should be investigated in each case. For15 example, consider practical wisdom. If it requires the use of other principles, how will it still be there when it is not active? And if one virtue by nature consists in being in a state to a certain extent and another to another extent, and one sort of self-control imposes measure on feelings, will the other type eliminate them entirely? But the identical question arises for the other virtues generally once it has been raised for practical wisdom.

Should we state, at least, that the virtuous person will know them20 and how much he will have of them? Perhaps he will act according to some of them if circumstances demand. But advancing on to the greater principles, and the other measures, he will act according to those. For example, he will not locate the act of self-control in imposing a measure, but in separating himself entirely as far as possible, absolutely not living the life of the good human being,25 which civic virtue values, but leaving this, and opting for another, the life of the gods. For assimilation is to the gods, not to good human beings. Assimilation to good human beings is making an image of an image, one from another. But the other assimilation is like making an30 image according to a paradigm.

¹ See Pl., Tht. 176A5–B3; Ar., EN 10.7.1177b33, 8.1179b27.

² See Pl., Tht. 176B2–3.

³ Τὸ ἡγεμονικόν (‘the governing or leading part of the soul’) is the Stoic term. See SVF 1.529 (= Sext. Emp., M. 9.8).

⁴ Inserting ἢ between σώφρονι and ἀνδρείῳ with Kirchhoff.

⁵ See Ar., EN 10.8.1178b10–23.

⁶ See Pl., Phd. 82A11–B2; Rep. 430B9–D2, 433B8–C2, 434C8.

⁷ See Pl., Rep. 427E–434D, 443B2.

⁸ See Alcinous, Didask. 181.44–45.

⁹ The ὁμοίωσις (‘assimilation’) comes from the verb ὁμοιοῦσθαι (‘to be made like’).

¹⁰ On virtues as measures see Pl., Prot. 356D1–357B3; Sts. 284A8–E8; Soph. 228C1–D4; Phil. 64D9–E7.

¹¹ Cf. 5.5.6.4–5; 6.7.32.9; 6.9.3.43–44 on the Good as ἀνείδεος (‘formless’).

¹² See Pl., Tht. 176C4–D1; Lg. 716D1–E3.

¹³ See Pl., Tht. 176B1–8.

¹⁴ Cf. 3.6.5.13–29. See Pl., Phd. 69C1, 82A11.

¹⁵ See Pl., Rep. 509A3.

¹⁶ These are the intelligible objects of which the one purified is now aware.

¹⁷ See Pl., Phd. 64D2–7.

¹⁸ See SVF 3.500 (= Stob., Ecl. 93.14), 501 (= Stob., Ecl. 96.18), 502 (= Stob., Ecl. 97.5) on ἁμαρτία (‘moral error’) and κατόρθωσις (‘morally perfect acting’).

¹⁹ See Pl., Phdr. 246E5–6. The first god is Zeus.

²⁰ See Pl., Phd. 79D6; Symp. 212A4; Tim. 37A6; Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072b21.

²¹ See Pl., Rep. 434C8.

²² On the Stoic doctrine of the mutual implication of the virtues, see SVF 3.295 (= D.L., 7.125), 299 (= Plutarch, De St. repug. 1046e).

²³ The word ἀüλότης (‘immaterial [state]’) is a hapax in Plotinus and is perhaps odd in this context, although it is the reading of all the mss. Porphyry, Sent. 32.29.6, reads ταὐτότης (‘identical [state]’), presumably indicating the identity discussed in the previous section.