§4.5.1. Since we have earlier postponed1 the investigation of the question as to whether it is possible to see if there is no medium such as air, or any other type of what is called transparent body,2 we must now investigate this. Now it has been asserted3 that seeing and sense-perception in general necessarily take place through the medium of some type of 5body; for, it is argued, without body the soul would be lodged entirely in the intelligible world. But since sense-perception is the apprehension of things that are not intelligible, but exclusively of sensibles, the soul must somehow come into contact with sensibles through things which are of the same nature as they, and thus produce a certain association of cognition or affection with them.10
For this reason, it is through the medium of corporeal organs that cognition occurs; for it is through these, which are, in a way, of the same nature as, or continuous with, sensibles, that the soul, in a way, somehow comes to be united with the sensibles themselves, and there comes to be an affection that has the same character as the sensibles.4 If, then, there has to be some contact with the objects of cognition, why would one bother enquiring into this in the case of what is cognized by touch?15 In the case of seeing – whether this applies in the case of hearing may be raised later5 – that is, in the case of [actual] seeing, we must ask whether there needs to be a body intermediate between sight and colour. Or could one perhaps postulate that the intermediate body impacts on6 the organ accidentally, but contributes nothing to seeing for those who are seeing?
If, though, such bodies were dense – as, for example, they would be if20 they were composed of earth, they would prevent seeing, while the more subtle were the bodies between the better we would see – one could posit that the intermediaries contribute to sight, or if they do not contribute, they at least do not prevent it. But one can at any rate say that earthen intermediaries are such as to interfere with sight.
If, however, the medium receives the affection first and in a way receives an impression of it – an indication of this is that if someone25 stands in front of us looking at a colour, he also sees it – it follows that, if no affection had arisen in the medium, it would not reach us.
In fact, it is not necessary for the medium to be affected, if the nature of that which it is to be affected – the eye – is affected; or at any rate, if affected, it would be affected differently as, for example, the rod30 between the torpedo fish and the hand is not affected by what the hand experiences;7 and yet in this case, if the rod and the line were not in between, the hand would not be affected. And yet even this could be disputed; for the fisherman is said to experience a shock even if the torpedo fish gets into his net.8
Actually, the discussion here seems to be moving towards the so-35called ‘relations of cosmic sympathy’.9 For if one thing is of a nature to be affected by another sympathetically because it has a certain sameness to it, the medium would not be affected if it had no such sameness, or it would not be affected in the same way. If so, then what was of a nature to be affected would be affected all the more if there were no medium in between, even if the medium were of such a kind as to be affected also in40 some way itself.
§4.5.2. If seeing consists of something like the light of the eye making contact with the light10 in between extending as far as the sensible, then this light must be in between, and the present hypothesis is enquiring as to this intermediary. But if it is the underlying body which is the object of sight that effects the change in question, what is there to prevent the5 change going straight to the eye with nothing in between – even if, as things are, when there is something located in front of the eyes it is necessarily changed in some way?
Those who make acts of seeing an outpouring11 would not have to accept the consequence that something must absolutely be between, unless they were afraid that the ray might collapse. But it consists of10 light, and light travels in a straight line. Those, on the other hand, who make an impact the cause would certainly require a medium. But the champions of images who say they go through the void require empty space, so that they may not be obstructed; and so, if having nothing in between will so much the more not obstruct sight, they have no quarrel15 with our hypothesis.12
Those, by contrast, who say that seeing takes place by means of sympathy, will say that we see to a lesser degree if something were to be in between, insofar as it would obstruct, impede, and obscure the sympathy; it would be more consistent to say that even what is of a kindred nature inevitably obscures the sympathy, insofar as it is itself affected. For, after all, if a body which is continuous in composition20 down to its depths were being burnt by a flame being applied to it, the part of it which is deep down would be less affected by the application than the part on the surface.
But if the parts of a single living being were in sympathy, would they be affected less because there is something in between?
In fact, they would be less affected, but the affection would be proportional to the extent nature wanted, with the intermediary preventing an excessive degree of affection; unless, presumably, the affection25 transmitted13 is such that what is between is not affected at all.
But if the sympathy comes from the fact that the cosmos is a single living being, and we are affected because we are in a single living being and belong to it, how is it not necessary for there to be continuity whenever there is sense-perception of something at a distance?
In fact, there is continuity and something in between because the living being must be continuous, but the affection is of something which is30 continuous only accidentally; otherwise, we shall have to say that everything is affected by everything. But if one thing is affected by another, and something else by something else again, and not in the identical manner, one would not need something in between in every case. If, then, someone were to claim that it is required in the case of sight, he must say why. For what passes through the air does not appear to cause it to be affected35 in every case, except in the sense that it divides it.
For example, if a stone were to fall from above, what else does the air do except not offer resistance to it? For it is not reasonable that it should fall due to ‘reciprocal displacement’,14 since its downward motion is natural. For in this way fire, even more so, could rise up by ‘reciprocal displacement’; but that is absurd – because fire, by the very swiftness of its own motion, anticipates the reciprocal displacement of the air. But if40 someone says that the reciprocal displacement is speeded up by its speed, this would happen only accidentally, and it would not be the cause of the upward motion. For in the case of trees, too, the upward thrust takes place without any pushing on their part. We also cut the air when we move, and the reciprocal displacement does not push us, but45 merely follows us and fills the space emptied by us.
If, then, the air is divided by bodies of this kind without being affected, what is there to prevent it allowing forms to pass through to the eyes without any division? And if the forms do not pass through as in a stream, what need is there for the air to be affected, and for the affections to come to us through it by its being affected beforehand?50 For if our sense-perception happens because the air is affected beforehand, we should not see the object of sight by looking at it; rather, we would derive our sense-perception from the air adjacent to us, as in the case of being warmed. For in that case, it is not the fire that is at a distance but the air adjacent to us that is warmed and appears to55 warm us; for this happens by contact, but in acts of seeing there is no contact. Hence, when a sensible is placed on the eye it does not make us see, but something between must be lit.15 This is presumably because the air is dark. If it were not dark, perhaps there would have been no need of light, for the darkness, being an impediment to seeing, must be overcome by light. Or perhaps if the object is applied directly to the60 eye, it is not seen because it brings with it the shadow of the air as well as its own.
§4.5.3. A very strong piece of evidence that we do not see the form of a sensible by means of the air being affected as if by transmission16 is that fire, the stars, and their shapes, are seen at night in darkness. For certainly no one will say that the forms arise in the darkness and thus5 make contact; for there would not have been darkness if the fire had illuminated its own form. Since even when it is very dark and the stars are hidden, and the light from them does not shine, the fire from beacons can be seen, and also that from towers which give signals to10 ships. But if someone were to say, contradicting sense-perception, that even in these cases the fire is passing through the air, it would be necessary for sight to apprehend the faint trace of fire in the air and not the fire itself, in its original brightness. But if, when there is darkness intervening, what transcends it can be seen, it will be seen all the more when there is nothing in between.15
But one might consider that it will be impossible to see when there is no medium, not because there is no medium, but because, due to its unity, the living being’s sympathy with itself, and that of its parts with each other, will be destroyed. For it seems that any kind of sense-perception happens because the living being – that is to say, this universe20 – is in sympathy with itself. For if this were not so, how could one part of it participate in the power of another, particularly when that power is at a distance? We should actually look into this: if there were another cosmos and another living being not contributing to this one, and there were sight ‘on the back of heaven’,17 would it see that cosmos across a proportional interval?25
In fact, this cosmos would have no relation to that one.
But that is a question for later.18 For now, one could adduce additional evidence for the claim that seeing does not take place due to the medium being affected. If the medium consisting of air actually underwent the affection, it must, of course, necessarily be affected in a corporeal way; that means that there would be an impression as in wax. A part of the object of sight should actually be impressed on each part of it; and so30 the part in contact with the eye would for its part receive a portion of the object seen identical in dimensions to the pupil. But as things are, all of it is seen, and all those who in the air generally see it, when they are facing it or away to the sides, near it, and from its back, so long as there is no obstacle in the way; and so each part of the air has the whole of the object35 of sight, as, for example, a face. This is not, however, a corporeal kind of affection, but one that takes place due to greater psychical exigencies, that is, to a single living being in sympathy with itself.
§4.5.4. But what about the light of the eye that is in contact with that which is adjacent to the eye and extending as far as the sensible? In fact, in the first place, there is no need for the air in between, unless after all one could not talk of light without air.19 In this way, it would be in between accidentally, but the light itself would be in between without5 being affected. And, in general, there is no need for an affection here, but nonetheless there is a need for something in between. But if light is not a body, there is no need for a body.20 And indeed sight would not need light which is not its own and is in between simply for seeing, but for seeing at a distance. As for the question as to whether there could be light without air, we shall deal with that later.2110
For the present, however, we must consider this: if this light in contact is ensouled, and the soul is carried through it and comes to be in it, as in the case of the light that is within, then in the act of apprehension, which is seeing, there would be no need of intermediate light, but seeing will be like touch, with the power of sight apprehending15 its object in the light, and what is in between not being affected, but the motion of sight proceeding to its object.
Indeed, we should investigate whether sight must proceed to that object because there is some interval between them, or because there is some body in the interval. And if it is because the body in the interval forms a barrier between them, if that were to be removed, it will see. But20 if it is because there is merely an interval, one must suppose that the object of sight is not naturally active and exerts no influence whatever. But this is impossible. For it is not only touch that says that something is near and is touching it, but it is affected by differentiae in the object of touch, and makes report of them, and if nothing were to stand in the way, it would perceive something, even if the object concerned is at25 a distance. For both the air in between, and we ourselves, perceive a fire simultaneously, without waiting for the air to be heated. The solid body is warmed rather than the air, so that it is rather warmed through the air, and not by it.
If, then, the object has the capacity to act, while the subject – that is to say, the faculty of sight in some way or other – has the capacity to be30 acted on, why does it need something else in the middle on which it can act so as to make something happen? For that is as if one had need of an obstacle. For when the light of the sun approaches, it is not necessary that the air be affected first, and next us, but both are affected simultaneously, and often before the light comes near the eye – when it is elsewhere – so that we can see without the air having been affected beforehand, with what has not been affected being in between, and the35 light, with which our sight must be in contact, not yet having arrived. Indeed, seeing the stars, or any kind of fire, at night would be difficult to justify on this hypothesis.
But if the soul remains in itself, but needs light as a kind of stick to enable it to reach its objects,22 then the apprehension would have to40 involve force, and take place with light exerting pressure and being extended, and the sensible, the colour, qua colour, would itself have to offer resistance; for that is how contacts through an intermediary take place.
Next, on this hypothesis, the object came to be in close proximity, without there then being anything in between; for later, in this way, making contact through an intermediary cause, it produces cognition, 45as if by memory or even more as if by syllogistic reasoning; it does not, however, happen like this. But if the light adjacent to the sensible must be affected, and next transmits the affection as far as the eye, we have the hypothesis identical to the one that involves the light from the sensible first of all modifying that which is in between, against which we have already raised objections elsewhere.23
§4.5.5. When we turn to the subject of hearing, should we in this case grant that it occurs when the adjacent air is acted on by the first motion produced by the object that makes the sound, and that the sound comes to sense-perception by means of the air extending to the ear which is acted on in the identical manner? Or is what is in between affected5 accidentally by being in the middle, though if what is in between is removed, once the sound happens, for example, when two bodies clash together, the sense-perception reaches us immediately? Or is it the case that the first motion needs the air that is being struck, but thereafter what is in between is involved in another way?10
Here indeed the air does seem to be responsible for sound.24 For sound would not happen in the first place when two bodies clash together unless the air that has been struck in the swift collision of these bodies is forced out, and impacts on the air next to it as far as the ears and the sense of hearing, and passes on the sound. But if the air is responsible for sound,15 and the impact is produced by the air that has been set in motion, what is the source of the differences in voices and in sounds in general? For bronze produces a different sound on bronze from the one it produces on something else, and other things again produce different sounds; but the air and the impact on it is identical in each case, and the differences are not just differences of loudness and softness.
If, however, we must say that the impact on air has produced the20 sound, we should not say that it is on it qua air. For it makes the sound when it acquires the condition of a solid body, remaining where it is like something solid before it flows away.25 And so the bodies clashing together are sufficient, and the clash and this impact are the sound that comes to sense-perception. There is also evidence for this in the internal sounds of animals, which do not involve air, but are produced25 when one thing clashes with and strikes another; for example, the bending of bones and their grinding when they are rubbed against each other, without air coming in between.
But enough of this problem. The result of the investigation here also turns out to be the same as the one we propounded about sight, with 30what happens in the case of hearing also being based on a sort of self-awareness, as in a living being.
§4.5.6. We must also raise the question as to whether there could be light in the absence of air,26 as when the sun shines on the surface of bodies with the space in between being empty, and in this case, too, being lit up accidentally, just because it is there. But if other things also are affected by it, and light has real existence because of air – for it would 5be an affection of it – then the affection would not exist without there being something that is to be affected.
In fact, the first point is that the light is not primarily an affection of the air, nor of it qua air. For light is a property of each individual or fiery body; indeed, even stones of a certain kind are endowed with a luminous surface.10
But would the light that extends to something else from that which has this kind of surface exist if air did not exist? If it were only a quality, and a quality of something, since every quality exists in a substrate, we must necessarily look for the body in which light must exist. But if it is an activity27 that comes from something else, why will it not exist and impinge on what transcends it when there is no body adjacent, but 15a kind of void in between, if indeed that were possible? Since it proceeds in a straight line, why should it not reach its destination without being supported by anything? But if it were actually to collapse,28 it will be carried downwards. For neither the air nor any illumined thing will actually drag it away from what illumines it and force it to move 20forward; for it is not accidental, so that it is altogether attached to something else, nor is it an affection of something else, so that there has to be something to be affected. Otherwise, it would have to stay put when it has arrived at its destination. But as it is, it departs. So, it could also arrive.
Where, then, is it?
In fact, all that is needed is a place. Yet this way the body of the sun will lose the activity that comes from it; and that is light. But if this is so,25 light will not belong to anything. But its activity comes from some substrate; it does not go to a substrate, and the substrate would be affected in some way if it were there. But being the activity of a soul, like life, it would be the activity of something that would be acted on, like body, if it were there, but it happens even when the substrate is not30 there; what, then, would prevent the same applying to light, if indeed it were some kind of activity? For as it is, it is not the luminosity of the air that generates the light, but since it is mixed with earth it makes it dark and so not pure.29 So, it is the same as saying that something sweet exists if it were mixed with the bitter.
But if someone were to say that light is a change in the air, one must35 say that the air itself would have to be changed by this change, and the dark element in it to have become not dark by a process of alteration. But as it is, the air stays as it is, as if it were not affected at all. But the affection must belong to that of which it is an affection. So, light is not a coloration of air, but exists in its own right; air is just present to it.40
And so let this be the end of our consideration of this question.
§4.5.7. Is the light simply dissipated, or does it run back to its source? We might derive something from dealing with this question which would help us with our previous one.
In fact, if it were inherent, so that what participates in it has it as its own, one would perhaps say it was dissipated; but if it is an activity that does not flow away – for if it were, then it would flow about and pour5 itself into the inside to a greater extent than it proceeded from the source of the activity – it would not be destroyed, so long as what produced the light remained in existence. But if that changes, the light is in another place, not because there has been a flowing back or a change of course, but because the activity belongs to what produces the light and is present, to the extent that nothing gets in the way of this.10 For even if the sun’s distance from us were many times what it actually is, the light would extend as far as this, so long as nothing prevents it or stands in between.
But the activity inherent in it that produces the light is like the life of the luminous body, is superior, and a kind of first principle of the activity15 or source; while the other is beyond the boundary of the body, an image of what is inside, a secondary activity, though not detached from the first. For each being has an activity, which is a likeness of itself, so that while the being exists the likeness does as well, and while it remains where it is, the likeness can extend to a distance, one to a greater and another to a lesser extent; and some activities are weak and dim, and20 some even escape our notice, but those of some are considerable and extend to a distance.30 And when such an activity extends to a distance, we are driven to conclude that it is both there, where the thing that exercises the activity and has the capacity is situated, and again at the point it reaches. One can see this in the case of eyes, where animals that have luminous eyes, when they project light also outside their eyes; and25 indeed in the case of animals which have fire concentrated inside them, which shine light to the outside in darkness by means of dilation, while in their contractions there is no light outside, nor again has it perished, but exists either outside or not.31
What, then? Has it gone inside? Or is it not outside because the fire is30 not directed outside, but has gone inside? Has the light, then, gone in as well?
In fact, only the fire has. And when it has gone inside, the rest of the body is in front of it, so that it cannot exercise its activity outwards. The light from bodies, then, is the outward activity of a light-giving body; but the light32 itself in bodies of this kind, which are actually such35 primarily, is wholly substantiality relating to the form of the primarily light-giving body. But when this kind of body is mixed with matter it gives off colour; only the activity does not give it, but in a way adds some coloration inasmuch as it belongs to another and depends in a way on40 that, and what separates itself from that body also stands apart from the activity. But one must say that light is entirely incorporeal, even if it belongs to a body.
For this reason, neither the expression ‘it has gone away’ nor ‘it is present’ are used in the strict sense; these apply in another way, and the real existence of light is like an activity. For one must call even the image in a mirror an activity, since what is reflected in it acts on what is capable45 of being acted on, while not flowing out towards it; but if the object is present, it appears there, and is like an image of colour fashioned in a certain way. And if it goes away, the transparent medium no longer has what it had before, when what was seen provided itself to it for the exercise of its activity.
But this is also the case for soul, for to the extent that it is an activity of50 another prior soul, when that prior one remains as it is, the subsequent activity does so, too.33
But what if someone says it is not an activity, but derives from an activity, such as we already said a body’s own life was, like light already mixed with bodies?
In fact, here there is colour because what produces it has been55 included in the mixture.
But what about the body’s life?
In fact, it has life because there is another soul adjacent to it. When the body, then, is destroyed – for certainly nothing can exist without having a share in soul – when, then, the body is being destroyed and the soul that gave it life, or some other one in the vicinity, is inadequate to it, how could life any longer remain? What, then, happens? Has this soul60 been destroyed?
In fact, not this one; for this is also the image of an irradiation. It is just no longer there.34
§4.5.8. If there were a body outside heaven, and there were someone looking from here with nothing preventing him from seeing, would what is not in sympathy with that body be able to view it, if the sympathy that exists here arises from the nature of a single living being?
In fact, if the sympathy exists because the receiving subjects and the5 objects perceived belong to a single living being, then there would be no sense-perceptions, unless this body on the outside were a part of this living being. If it were, there might be.35
But what if it were not a part, but had a body that was coloured and the other qualities, like a given body here, and was of a type conformable to the organ of sight?
In fact, even so it would not be visible, if our hypothesis is correct – 10unless someone were to try to undermine the hypothesis for this very reason, maintaining that it would be absurd, if colour is not to be seen when the sense of sight is present, and the other senses were not to exercise their activity on their proper sensibles when they are present to them.
But we are in a position to reveal the actual source of this apparent absurdity: in fact, it is that we act here and are acted on because we are in15 and belong to one thing. We must, then, consider this point, if there is any other factor at work besides this, and consequently whether our demonstration can stand on its own; if not, the thesis should be demonstrated with other arguments.
It is, then, clear that the living being is in sympathy with itself. And if the cosmos is a living being, that is sufficient; and so the parts, inasmuch as they are parts of a single living being, will be in sympathy with each other.
Now suppose someone were to say that this arises from sameness? But apprehension or sense-perception take place in the living being20 because it is the identical thing that partakes of sameness. For the organ is the same as its object, and participates in it. So, sense-perception will be the soul’s apprehension through organs which are the same as the objects apprehended. If, then, being a living being, it were to perceive not things in themselves, but things the same as the ones in itself, will it apprehend them insofar as it is a living being?25
In fact, they will be apprehensible not as belonging to it, but as being the same as the things in it. And, in fact, what can be apprehended can be apprehended like this due to the sameness, because this soul has made them the same, so that they should not be non-conformable. And, so, if what creates the things there were a soul36 altogether different from ours, then the supposed same things there would have no relation to the30 soul of our cosmos. Actually, the absurdity shows that its cause is the contradiction inherent in the hypothesis. For it speaks simultaneously of soul and not soul, of things that are related and not related, and says that the identical things are the same and not the same; so that, having contradictories in itself, it would not be a hypothesis. For it says that35 there is a soul in this other cosmos; so, it postulates a cosmos and not a cosmos, another and yet not another, nothing and yet not nothing, and something complete and yet not complete. So, we must abandon the hypothesis, since it is not possible to seek its consequences by removing the very thing hypothesized in it.
1 Cf. 4.4.23.43–48.
2 See Ar., DA 2.7.418b4.
3 Cf. 4.4.23.13–36.
4 See Pl., Tim. 45B2–D6.
5 Cf. infra 5.
6 See SVF 2.864 (= Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 130.14), 866 (= Aëtius, Plac. 4.15.3) for the Stoic term νύττοι used here.
7 The torpedo fish gives a nasty numbing electric shock.
8 Implying less direct contact than holding a rod and line.
9 Cf. 4.4.32.13–15; infra 6.17–20.
10 Preserving φῶς with the mss.
11 See Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 127.17ff., 136.30–138.2. The three theories listed here are those of the Platonists, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. Also, see Ps.-Plutarch, De plac. philos. 901a–c.
12 See Epicurus, Ep. Hdt. 46–50 (= fr. 319 Usener); Lucretius, De re. nat. 4.26–43.
13 Reading <δια>δίδομενον with Igal and HS5. Cf. infra 4.5.4.47. See Pl., Tim. 45D2, 67b3–4.
14 See Pl., Tim. 79D–E, 80A–C. For the technical Peripatetic term ἀντιπεριστάσις see Ar., Phys. 8.10.267a16–17; Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 129.1.
15 See Ar., DA 2.7.419a10–13.
16 For the technical term διάδοσις see Alex. Aphr., De an. 41.5.
17 See Pl., Phdr. 247B7–C1.
18 Cf. infra 8.
19 See Pl., Tim. 45B2–D6.
20 See Ar., DA 2.11.423b12–26.
21 Cf. infra 6.
22 For the Stoic image, see SVF 2.864 (= Alex. Aphr. De an. man. 130.14–18); SVF 2.867 (= D.L., 7.157).
23 It is not clear to what this refers. Cf. perhaps 4.4.23.20.
24 See Ar., DA 2.8.419b19.
25 See Ar., DA 2.8.419b21–22.
26 Cf. supra 4.10.
27 I.e., the secondary activity (ἡ ἐνέργεια ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας) as opposed to the primary activity (ἡ ἐνέργεια τῆς οὐσίας). Cf. 2.1.7.26–30; 4.4.29.9–12; 5.4.2.27–33.
28 Cf. supra 2.10ff.
29 τὸ φωτεινόν (‘luminosity’) is equivalent to ἡ διαφάνεια (‘transparency’). See Ar., DA 2.7.418b9; Alex. Aphr., De an. 44.14–46.1.
30 See Ar., DA 2.7.418b4–10; Alex. Aphr. De an. mant. 141.31–142.4.
31 Plotinus seems here to be thinking on the one hand of animals such as cats, and on the other of insects such as fireflies.
32 Reinserting φῶς with HS4.
33 Cf. 3.4.3.24–27; 4.3.10.29–38, 12.1–2.
34 Cf. 4.4.29.12–31.
35 Cf. 4.4.32.13–25.
36 Reading ἐκεῖ εἴη ψυχὴ with HS4 after the correction of Igal.