§4.1.1. In investigating the substantiality of the soul,1 once we have demonstrated that it is not a body, and that, among incorporeals, it is not a harmony; and rejecting its description as an entelechy as not correct, in the sense in which it is asserted, and as not being indicative of its essence; and, further, when we declare that it is of an intelligible5 nature and of divine kinship, perhaps then we will have made some clear statement about its substantiality.
However, it seems better now to probe this question somewhat further. Then, after all, we made a simple division, distinguishing the sensible from the intelligible nature, and situating the soul in the intelligible world.2 Now, though, let us accept it as given that it belongs to the intelligible; what we need to do next is to track down the precise 10quality of its nature, by employing a different approach.
Let us specify, then, that there are some things that are primarily divisible and by their very nature subject to dispersion;3 and these are those things that have none of their parts identical either to any other part or to the whole, and in which the part must be less than the totality as a whole. These things are sensible magnitudes or masses, each of 15which occupies a unique place, and is such as not to be capable of being simultaneously in a plurality of places while remaining identical.
There is, on the other hand, a type of substantiality contrasted with this, which is in no way receptive of division, and is partless and indivisible, admitting of no extension even conceptually, having no need of place nor coming to be in any sort of being either part by part or as 20a whole; it is, in a way, riding on all beings together, not so as to fix itself upon them, but because the other things cannot – nor indeed do they want to – exist without it, a substance always maintaining the identical state, being common to all those things that follow upon it like the centre in a circle, from which all the lines to the periphery depend; 25nonetheless, they allow it to remain alone by itself, though drawing upon it for their generation and [continued] existence; they participate, on the one hand, in the point, and its partlessness is a principle for them, but they have proceeded forth from the intelligible world while yet binding themselves to it.
So, there is indeed this primarily indivisible Being among intelligibles, 30as guiding principle among Beings, and there is that being among sensibles which is divisible in every way; but prior to the sensible, though contiguous with it and indeed immanent in it, there is another nature, not itself primarily divisible, as are bodies, but yet such as to become divided among bodies; so that, when bodies are divided, the 35form in them becomes divided as well, yet exists as a whole in each of the divided parts, becoming many and yet staying identical, while each of the many separates entirely from any other, inasmuch as it has become completely divided.4 It is even so with colours and all qualities and each shape, which can exist simultaneously as a whole in many separated things, while having no part that is affected in the identical manner any 40other part is affected; for which reason indeed this, too, is to be reckoned entirely divisible.
But again, in addition to that completely indivisible nature, there is another substantiality following next upon this, deriving its indivisibility from that source, but which, through striving in its procession from that towards the opposite nature, finds itself situated between the two, that is 45to say, the indivisible and primary and that which is divided in bodies, which has immersed itself in bodies – not in the way that colour and quality is in many places identical in its entirety, in a multiplicity of corporeal masses – but that which is in each is entirely separate from any other, inasmuch as one mass is also distinct from any other; and even if 50the magnitude is one, yet that which is identical in each part possesses no commonality that would contribute to shared experience, because the identity is in fact different in each case; for it is the affection that is identical, not the substantiality itself.
But the substantiality which we say rests upon this nature, while still contiguous with the indivisible Substantiality, is both itself 55a substantiality and comes to be present in bodies, in which it happens to experience division, while not having suffered this experience previously, before it had given itself to bodies. In the bodies, then, in which it comes to be, even when it comes to be in that which is greatest and all-embracing, having given itself to the whole of each, it still does not itself abandon its unity.5 For it is not one in the way that 60a body is one; for a body is one by its continuity, while each of its parts is different from another and in a different place. Nor is it one in the way that a quality is. For that nature at once divisible and indivisible which we want to say that soul is, is not one in the manner of a continuous entity, which has one part in one place and another in another; but while it is certainly divisible, in that it is present in all the parts of that in which it is present, it is nonetheless indivisible, because it is present as a whole in all the parts, and in any one of 65them as a whole also.
And he who beholds this greatness of the soul, and who beholds its power, will acknowledge how divine a thing it is, and how marvellous, and how it is among the natures which transcend the physical world. Though it does not itself possess magnitude, it is present to objects of 70every magnitude, and it is present, now here, now there, not with a different part of itself, but as identical; the result is that it is divided and yet again not divided, or rather not divided in itself, nor has it come to be divided; for it remains with itself as a whole, but yet it is divided among bodies, since bodies are incapable, by reason of their own 75characteristic dividedness, of receiving it undividedly. So, divisibility would be a state of bodies, not of it itself.6
§4.1.2. It is clear from this, then, that the nature of the soul should be of this sort, and that anything different from this cannot be soul, either something solely indivisible or something entirely divisible, but that it must necessarily be both of these, in the way described above. For if it were constituted in the way that bodies are, with one part here and 5another there, it would not be the case that, when one part was affected, another part would have perception of the part affected, but that the particular soul, let us say of a finger, being distinct and independent, would have the perception; there would then be, generally, a multiplicity of souls administering each of us – and indeed it would 10not be just one soul that would be directing this universe, but an unlimited multitude, all separate from one another.
The fact of continuity, after all, if it does not result in unity, is of no relevance; for we must certainly not accept, as they claim in a state of self-deception, that acts of sense-perception proceed to the ‘ruling principle’ by a process of ‘transmission’.7 For first of all, the claim that there is a part of the soul that is a ‘controlling principle’ is made without 15due consideration. For how are they going to divide up the soul, and speak of this part and that, and then the ‘controlling principle’? By what sort of quantitative criterion, or by what differentiation of quality, will they make the division between each part, when the mass involved is one and continuous?
And [second] will it be only the controlling principle or the other parts, too, that will have sense-perceptions? And if only the former, if a sense-perception falls upon the controlling principle, in what place 20will the sense-datum be perceived as being situated? If in some other part of the soul, since it is not this part’s nature to perceive, it will not transmit its experience to the controlling principle, and so there will not be a sense-perception at all. And, on the other hand, if it falls upon the controlling principle itself, either it will fall upon a part of it, and when it 25perceives the item the other parts will not – for there would be no point in that – or there will be a multiplicity of sense-perceptions, and indeed an unlimited number of them, and they will not be all the same; but one will say ‘I was the first to experience that!’, and another will say, ‘I perceived the experience of another part!’; but, except for the first one, each of them will be ignorant of where the 30experience first arose. Or else each part of the soul will be deceived into imagining that the experience originated where it happens to be.
If, by contrast, not only the controlling principle, but also every other part, is going to be endowed with sense-perception, why would one be the controlling principle and another not? Or why would the sense-perception have to ascend as far as that? And how, in the case of the products of multiple sense organs, such as, for example, ears and eyes, will one single item be cognized?35
But if, on the other hand, the soul were entirely unitary, that is to say totally indivisible and one by itself, and if it entirely escapes all multiplicity and division, the result would be that nothing which was occupied by soul will be ensouled as a whole; but as if basing itself around a central point of each living being, it would have left the whole mass of it soulless.
The soul must, therefore, be in this way both one and many,8 and 40divided and indivisible, and we should not be incredulous as to the possibility of a thing’s being identical and one in many places. For if we were not prepared to accept this possibility, the nature holding all things together and administering them will not exist. As it is, it is that which encloses all things in one embrace and directs them with wisdom, 45constituting on the one hand a multiplicity – since there is a multiplicity of beings – but also one, in order that the coordinating force may be one, and while orchestrating life in all its parts due to its multiple unity, exercising a wise leadership due to its indivisible unity. In those things which are devoid of wisdom, the controlling unity imitates this.
This, therefore, is the meaning of the divinely inspired riddling utterance: ‘From the indivisible and ever-unchanging Substantiality 50and from the divisible substantiality which comes to be in bodies, he mixed from both a third type of substantiality.’9 The soul, then, is one and many in this way; and the forms in bodies are many and one; bodies, in turn are many only; and that which is highest is one only.10
1 Cf. 4.7, esp. 84 and 85 to which this little piece is a kind of appendix. The reference throughout is to soul in general, and implicitly to the hypostasis Soul.
2 Cf. 4.7.9–12.
3 See Pl., Tim. 37A5.
4 See Pl., Tim. 35A2–3.
5 Cf. 4.3.8.2–4; 5.1.2.35–38.
6 Cf. 6.4.4.41–52.
7 The Stoics. See SVF 2. 441 (= Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 223.25), 854 (= Aëtius, Plac. 4.23.1); Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 223.28–34.
8 Cf. infra 53; 4.3.3.10; 4.9, passim; 6.2.4.30–35, 5.14. See Pl., Parm. 155E5.
9 See Pl., Tim. 35A1–4.
10 Probably a reference to Intellect, a one-many.