COLLOQUIUM 1

IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS

ANDREW SMITH

ABSTRACT
Plotinus employs metaphor not only as a simple literary device but also with
deeper metaphysical implications, which I will call analogy, as a means of in-
ferring properties of transcendent reality from phenomena in the material
world. Thus universal physical causal relationships, such as the way in which
fire heats (fire has an internal essential activity which produces an external ac-
tivity of heat), point to a similar structure in the Intelligible world, since the
physical world is its image. One of the most frequent metaphors is that of light.
But because, for Plotinus, light is incorporeal, it has a special place in his met-
aphysics which requires some explanation. Light is sometimes employed by
him as a simple metaphor, sometimes as an analogy, but also as a real entity
which provides a connection between the transcendent and physical worlds
which is more continuous even than the causal chain of image levels revealed by
analogy.

I. Metaphor and Analogy

The Enneads of Plotinus is full of metaphors and analogies. For some read-
ers, part of the attractiveness of his philosophical exposition is this very
richness of metaphor.1 But my main concern is not with that kind of meta-
phor which is no more than a literary device employed to communicate in
more vivid terms a philosophical idea, a topic so well covered by Ferwerda
(1965), but with the sort of metaphor which is used as a serious philosophi-
cal tool for providing discursive reason with access to transcendent reality.
For the purposes of this paper, I will call it analogy, an expression used by
Plotinus when he claims that we have access to what is beyond the level of
discursive reason by means of analogies:
We are taught about it [the One] by analogies and negations and knowledge of
what comes from it. (VI.7.36,7ff.)
Analogy, for Plotinus, is also linked with the metaphysical theory which
identifies successive grades of reality as a sequence of images: Intellect is
an image of the One, Soul of Intellect; this world an image of the intelligi-
ble world. We will find that for Plotinus analogies have a status above that

_________
1 In the present discussion I will include similes under metaphor and analogy.
2 ANDREW SMITH

of simple metaphor in that they represent at one level of reality a counter-

part or image of a higher level which acts as their cause. Even more com-
plex is the case of light which, as an incorporeal entity with an obviously
physical manifestation, seems in certain passages to provide a continuity
which is more than causal between the lowest and highest elements of the
Plotinian universe and might in this sense be said to go beyond analogy.
These observations go much further than Ferwerda, who concludes that in
Plotinus all metaphor, including what I have classed as analogies, have a
purely illustrative function, i.e., they are no more than literary devices. It is
this conclusion that I wish to challenge by examining more closely the phil-
osophical significance of analogies in the Enneads.
This topic is all the more important in that philosophers raise many objec-
tions to the use in philosophical discourse of metaphor in the broadest
sense: metaphor does not belong to rigorous philosophical analysis; it dis-
guises and distorts philosophical discourse: ‘disguises,’ since it can often be
unscrambled to reveal a non-metaphorical statement, ‘distorts,’ since a met-
aphor often brings with it other (and therefore extraneous and illicit) con-
cepts. In this paper I intend to explore the role of analogy in the context of
Plotinus’s ontology of the image as part of a planned extensive examination
of Plotinus’s philosophy of image and the role it plays in his thought.
Now all metaphor works by exploiting some likeness between that which
it seeks to explicate and the concept used for the explication, but in some
cases there is a closer relationship between the two. It is this fuller sense of
metaphor, which I have termed analogy, that I want to explore, and not, for
example, what we might designate as simple metaphor: e.g., ‘he fought like
a lion.’ When using analogies Plotinus is primarily concerned to infer some
property or characteristic from one level of reality to another and usually
from a lower to a higher. And this is nowhere more important than in at-
tempting to understand the nature of the transcendent. It is sometimes not
easy to be exactly sure when Plotinus means us to understand a metaphor in
this deeper sense, but we can at least begin by identifying those metaphors
which clearly go beyond simple description. These are the analogies that
are not merely illustrative, but present us with an instance of the same pro-
cess or thing that he wishes to explicate, but at a lower level: e.g., how does
Intellect ‘produce’ this world? It produces like fire, which has a causal ef-
fect of heat outside itself. We also note at once the link with the ontological
theory of image, that each level of reality is an image of what lies above it:
It [Soul] is an image of Intellect; just as a thought in its utterance is an image
of the thought in soul, so soul itself is the expressed thought of Intellect, and its
whole activity, and the life which it sends out to establish another reality; as
fire has the heat which remains with it and the heat which it gives. (V.1.3,6-10;
Armstrong, V, 19, 21; emphasis added)
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 3

Other analogies such as perfume or snow are adduced in a later chapter of

this treatise (V.1.6). There is more to these analogies than merely colourful
descriptions. For they point to a causal similarity or correspondence be-
tween two levels of reality, physical heat and the incorporeal level of Soul
and Intellect. We see this added complexity in another passage, in which
the heat which remains in fire and the heat which it gives out are character-
ised as internal and external activities or powers, i.e., real powers existing at
different ontological levels. This idea is elaborated into a general theory of
‘double activity’:
It [the product/external activity of the One] becomes Intellect . . . like that
principle [the One], a representation and image of it. But how, when that
abides unchanged, does Intellect come into being? In each thing there is an ac-
tivity which belongs to substance and one which goes out from substance; and
that which belongs to substance is the activity which is each particular thing,
and the other activity derives from that first one, and must in everything be a
consequence of it, different from the thing itself: as in fire there is a heat
which is the content of its substance, and another which comes into being from
that primary heat when fire exercises the activity which is natural to its sub-
stance in remaining as fire. So it is also in the higher world; and much more so
there. (V.4.2,25-33; Armstrong, V, 147; adapted, emphasis added)
This passage is the clearest exposition of this theory, which is intended to
explain what is popularly called ‘emanation,’ here concerning the genera-
tion of Intellect from the One. Plotinus begins by giving the desiderata: the
One must ‘remain,’ Intellect must be different from it and be its ‘representa-
tion and image’ (μίμημα καὶ εἴδωλον). He now makes a general statement
with the following elements: there is an ‘activity of the substance/essence’
and an ‘activity from the substance/essence’; the latter follows every entity
(ἑκάστου)2 of necessity and is different from that entity. The example is
given of the heat in3 and from fire. The analogy is then applied to the One.
We note the words of application: ‘and much more so there’ (καὶ πολὺ
πρότερον),4 a formula whose usage points strongly to the analogy being
_________
2 We note here that the sentence has already turned into a general rule.
3 This is the heat that completes the essence (συμπληροῦσα τὴν οὐσίαν).
4 Armstrong: ‘and much more so there’; Theiler: ‘und dort erst recht’; Cilento: ‘lassú, an-
zi, a piu forte ragione.’ For πολὺ πρότερον, cf. II.3.7,18. The sympathy or common breath
which connects everything together here must be πολὺ μᾶλλον καὶ πρότερον in the all, 15,20;
the soul has active powers much more so than lower entities, IV.7.8,7. If thinking is without
body much more so must be that which thinks, V.8.2,32; of nature being ‘far before its prod-
ucts in beauty,’ VI.7.11,15. Plants in the intelligible have a life which is ‘much more primari-
ly alive’ than those in this world, 34; the intelligible world is ‘much more primarily alive’
than life on earth. In VI.7.11 the notion of ‘priority’ or of ‘originality’ is prepared by the ap-
plication of terms like πρῶτον (13) to the intelligible life and δευτέρως, τρίττως (16-17) with
ἴχνος to its inferiors. All of these usages argue from one instance of a particular activity or
4 ANDREW SMITH

more than merely illustrative but as adducing an actual instance at a lower

level of that to which it is pointing. The corresponding elements of the
analogy are expressed as ‘accompanying activity’ (συνούσης ἐνεργείας,
V.4.2,35) and ‘generated activity’ (γεννηθεῖσα ἐνέργεια). An additional
feature is that the external power is described as ‘taking on substantiality’
(ὑπόστασιν λαβοῦσα, V.4.2,35) which is further explained as coming ‘into
existence and being’ (εἰς τὸ εἶναι καὶ οὐσίαν, V.4.2,37).5 There would ap-
pear then to be a subtle distinction between the outer activity itself and the
resulting hypostasis. Now the ground had already been prepared for this
theory in V.4.1,23f., but without the clear distinction of internal and exter-
nal activity:
Whence then does this come? From the First: for it certainly does not come
about by chance, and if it did the First would no longer be the principle of all
things. How then does it come from the First? If the First is perfect, the most
perfect of all, and the primal power, it must be the most powerful of all beings
and the other powers must imitate it as far as they are able. Now when any-
thing else comes to perfection we see that it produces, and does not endure to
remain by itself, but makes something else. This is true not only of things
which have no choice, but of things which grow and produce without choosing
to do so, and even lifeless things, which impart themselves to others as far as
they can: as fire warms, snow cools, and drugs act on something else in a way
corresponding to their own nature—all imitating the First Principle as far as
they are able by tending to everlastingness and generosity. (V.4.1,21-34; Arm-
strong, V, 143)
The question asked here is how anything comes from the One, which is
answered by an appeal to the theory that everything imitates the One. The
principle that now follows, that everything perfect produces, must be seen
to be an explanation or justification for this principle, which is valid for
things with and without ‘choice’ and even for lifeless things, examples of
which are now given: fire producing warmth, snow producing cold, and
drugs which have an effect on others similar to themselves (V.4.1,31-33).
The example of the fire alerts us to the similarity with the theory propound-
ed in chapter two of the treatise. We should also note here the close connec-

_________
state to an ontologically higher instance and both are seen as integrated at the appropriate
level into the total structure of the intelligible and physical universes.
5 Is it possible to apply this feature in reverse to the physical examples? Cf. V.2.1,26 for
ὑπόστασις at a lower level. But there is still an issue here. What does fire, etc., produce with
its external activity? A heated body or another fire? If the former then its heat need not be
essential to it and thus does not ‘complete’ its οὐσία. If the latter, then in what sense is it less
than its producer as Soul is inferior to Intellect? But the fact that the instances adduced in the
analogies do not behave in exactly the same way as that to which they point does not detract
from their status as instances. They are after all at a lower, and perhaps the lowest level. And
in a similar way the lowest manifestations of soul power in the body are no longer productive.
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 5

tion of the two principles of production in maturity and of imitation and

recall that Intellect is said to be the ‘imitation’ of the One—μίμημα καὶ
εἶδωλον (V.4.2,26). These are not redundant expressions: imitation suggests
something active, whereas image suggests a passive relationship. Here in-
choate Intellect has in it some élan towards the One which leads it to want
to imitate it (this is elsewhere seen as a general principle); on the other hand
what it receives is the image of the One. In this idea is expressed the causal
power of the One. This is, however, complicated by the fact that the One’s
external influence, if we may put it this way, is twofold: the primary pro-
duction of the indefinite ‘Intellect’ and the subsequent impression on that
indefinite ‘Intellect’ of form.

II. Double Activity and Image

This theory of double activity is an important idea which allows Plotinus to

‘correct’ what might easily lead to a crude interpretation of the production
of hypostases as a sort of outflow or emanation from the One. In fact the
theory counters this explicitly for the producer always ‘remains.’ And so in
V.1, which we will now look at in more detail, we find the affirmation that
the producer ‘does not flow out’ (οὐκ ἐκρέουσαν, V.1.3,11).6 The theory of
double activity is not so obvious in V.1.3 and 6 as in V.4, but a close com-
parison with V.4 serves to bring it out more clearly. The first passage,V.1.3,
is filled out in more detail by the second, V.1.6. In 3, 9ff we have the
‘whole activity’ (πᾶσα ἐνέργεια) and as the equivalent of the external ac-
tivity we have ‘life which it projects to make a hypostasis for something
else’ (ἣν προίεται ζωὴν εἰς ἀλλοῦ ὑπόστασιν).7 There follows the example
of fire introduced by the qualification οἷον—‘like.’ Fire has its internal heat
(συνοῦσα θερμότης) and the heat that it provides. The second passage
(V.1.6,30f.) begins with the general principle that all beings necessarily
produce something other than themselves.8 They produce from their own
οὐσία and from the δύναμις present to them a hypostasis which is depend-
_________
6 See also V.3.12, 40f, where the activity from the One is described as οἷον ῥεῖσαν. The
qualification suggests Plotinus’s dissatisfaction with the concept. We argue below that this
treatise, though not explicitly presenting the theory of double activity is not inconsistent with
it. This passage may support that. Activity does not leave the One but, in the form of its inner
activity, remains there. The rejection in this passage of another light before the light need not
mean that there is not an inner activity before an outer activity, but rather that they are very
closely identified.
7 ζωή is here, as often, close in meaning to ἐνέργεια.
8 The requirement of perfection is not mentioned here, but is stated additionally a little
later at 6,38.
6 ANDREW SMITH

ent on them, and which is an image of the archetype. These may be identi-
fied with the inner and outer activity respectively. The examples are given
of fire producing heat, snow producing cold and perfumes affecting what is
around them; something is said to come forth from all of these and be
picked up by whatever is close. The parallel examples and other similari-
ties, including the close citing of the principle of mature production surely
justify us in seeing the same basic theory of double activity as set out in V.4
at work here too.9
The last thing to point out now is the way in which the theory of double
activity is linked with the notion of image: the external activity (or its final
appearance as a hypostasis) is said to be an image of the internal activity. In
Ennead V.1 the image concept is invoked only in our second passage,
although the application in the first passage to the relationship of Intellect
and Soul of the Stoic concept of the endiathetos and prophorikos logos in-
cludes the observation that the soul is the εἰκών of Intellect (V.1.3,7). The
second passage has a more explicit image identification of the hypostasis
which all beings are said to produce (εἰκόνα οὖσαν, V.1.6,33). Plotinus
goes on to note the parallel way in which Intellect is produced from the One
and the Soul from Intellect. Each is a λόγος and εἴδωλον of the other and
Soul is even said to be an ἐνέρεια of Intellect. The double activity theory
thus links levels to each other and does so too in terms of image. V.4 also
suggests image with its references to ‘imitation’ and εἴδωλον. The linking
of the theory with image may be seen in another passage which also empha-
sises the parallel nature of the method of production throughout the system:
Resembling the One thus, Intellect produces in the same way, pouring forth a
multiple power—this is a likeness of it—just as that which was before it
poured forth. This activity springing from the substance of Intellect is Soul,
which comes to be this while Intellect abides unchanged: for Intellect too
comes into being while that which is before it abides unchanged: it is moved
and so brings forth an image. (V.2.1, 14-19; Armstrong, V, 59, 61; adapted)
The final stages of production in this chain of images (which are described
as having ὑπόστασις) are the perceptive soul and the ‘nature in plants.’ But
he is aware of having omitted to deal here with this lowest manifestation of
soul (V.2.2,29-31). Nor, we might add, has he dealt with what is even lower
than this, physical activities such as fire. Some light on his approach to this
may be gleaned from IV.3.10, 30 in which he contrasts the power of soul
_________
9 In the passages from V.1 we note the suppression of the term outer ‘activity’ in favour
of hypostasis, although the fact that it is also described as ζωή (which is very close to
ἐνέργεια) suggests that he has telescoped the two ‘aspects/phases’ of an external activity and
the substantial being (hypostasis) into which it ‘develops.’
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 7

and the power of fire by the way in which they produce outside themselves.
Soul has two powers, one which remains within and another which goes out
to form something else; soulless things like fire, on the other hand, although
they also have two powers, one lies dormant within, the other goes out to
make something else like themselves. This is an important addendum to the
theory of double activity and one which makes clearer the diminution in
status in comparison with soul of the examples, such as fire and snow, giv-
en by Plotinus elsewhere to explain the way in which hypostases work.
Here both soul and soulless things have two activities, but in the latter the
internal activity is dormant (οἷον εὕδει κείμενον, IV.3.10,33), 10 whereas
soul is ‘awake’ (ἐγρηγορός τι, IV.3. 10,36), both in its inner and outer activ-
ity. It is difficult to discern what exactly is meant by this. Can it mean that
soul is conscious of its activity? Certainly not in the sense that it is a delib-
erative planning power for this is denied in this passage as elsewhere.
Soul’s rationality transcends such deliberation. Elsewhere too Plotinus does
suggest that soul can in some way be conscious of its effects without being
adversely affected by that awareness. As for the lowest powers that are
asleep, this looks similar to the very lowest manifestations of the working
of the world soul at the level of nature in III.8.4, 24f. The very ultimate
form of production is one which is produced in a sort of sleep. Yet even
lower than this is a principle which is in itself dead and is no longer able to
create (III.8.2,29f).11 Another difference is that what is produced by soul
encounters no hindrance, whereas what is produced at a lower level does
(for example the opposite cold which counters heat).12 And what soul gives,
rational principles, also differs from the effect of soulless powers. This is,
of course, one of the general theories in II.3.9 where the ‘daimonic’ world
is due to lower powers.

_________
10 We may refer back to our treatment of V.4.1, 29f and 2,26, in which fire (along with
snow and drugs) is given as an example of something soulless which conforms to the princi-
ple of imitating the One in giving of itself. It is contrasted with things which grow but do not
have choice (plants) and those things that have choice.
11 It is difficult to discern exactly these final stages suggested in III.8, and even more dif-
ficult to see just how the levels of IV.3 fit in with them. The principle that is said not to be
awake in III.8.4 is clearly a level of soul, and the last level in III.8.2 which looks more like
the soulless agents of IV.3 is said not to ‘make’ anything, although it does add something to
the substrate. If ‘making’ is taken in the strong sense of creating a substance this might fit in
with fire which can heat something (admittedly other than itself) but cannot make another
fire.
12 Similarly in IV.7.4, 25, heat which performs just one function, to heat, is contrasted
with soul that is multifunctional and produces many effects. Mono-functionalism is a mark of
the physical.
8 ANDREW SMITH

But the very distinction made between soul and ‘soulless’ powers serves
to emphasize the continuity of the ontological progression since with the
differences pointed out there are also important similarities. Fire’s activity
presents not only an illustration of how a hypostasis operates but an in-
stance at a lower and more limited level.

III. Recapitulation

But is the idea of fire just a vivid or alternative way of making what looks
like a purely philosophical statement—nous has its own internal power and
an external power, just like fire. We happen to see that fire behaves like this
and it occurs to us that it is a useful way of illustrating the behaviour of In-
tellect. No, for Plotinus says more.
[How did it [Intellect] come to be then? . . . All things which exist, as long as
they remain in being, necessarily give from their own substance and from their
existent power, a reality around and external to them, dependent on them,
which is an image of the archetypes from which it came into being; fire gives
the heat which comes from it; snow does not only keep its cold inside itself.
Perfumed things show this particularly clearly. As long as they exist, some-
thing is diffused from themselves around them, and the person near them en-
joys their existence. And all things when they come to perfection produce; the
One is always perfect and therefore produces everlastingly. (V.1.6,30-39;
Armstrong, V, 31, 33; adapted, emphasis added)
His choice of fire is not arbitrary. For there is a general principle that all
things when they reach perfection (i.e., when they are what they are in the
fullest sense) produce something outside themselves. No doubt Plotinus
sees fire as the clearest and most instructive instance of this principle. I am
not here challenging the truth of this principle nor questioning the validity
of Plotinus’s inference from given instances like fire to a universal law.
Plotinus evidently accepted both. All I wish to claim now is that this sort of
analogical reasoning is not, for Plotinus, simply a vivid picture with no on-
tological content. Nor is it merely a vivid way of presenting a proposition
for pedagogical purposes. But rather it embodies an instance of a universal
physical law. There is a process of productive causality which operates in
this world. If this world is an image of the intelligible world then this causal
relationship will also be an image of a similar causal relationship in the in-
telligible. The legitimacy of the inference from this law to its application to
Intellect also depends, of course, on the general theory of the dependence of
the physical on the transcendent world; hence the close connection between
analogy and Plotinus’s theory of levels of reality as successive images. My
concern, however, is only to demonstrate the way in which Plotinus uses
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 9

analogy as something more than vivid description (i.e., he does not employ
examples for merely metaphorical reasons or matters of convenience). Ra-
ther, Plotinus uses instances that exemplify a universal principle, and thus
these analogies demonstrate properties that hold for all entities, both in the
Intelligible and material realms. An interesting parallel may be found in
Lucretius (II.112f): the behaviour of atoms is like that of specks of dust in a
sunbeam. He then goes on to note that those very specks of dust are each in
themselves instances of the same atomic phenomenon, i.e., each speck con-
tains a myriad of atoms whose incessant clashings cause it to move around.
This is similar to Plotinus in that the apparently merely illustrative descrip-
tion of specks in a sunbeam is in fact itself an instance of the same phenom-
enon it seeks to illustrate. Of course Lucretius is not making an inference
from a corporeal to a transcendent incorporeal world, but like Plotinus he is
making an inference from what can be seen to what cannot be seen (the
movement of atoms), although in Plotinus’s case the inference is from what
is accessible to sight and discursive reason to what lies beyond this.

IV. Levels of Reality as Images

We have already pointed out the connection between analogy and the con-
cept of image as representing levels of reality. This theory strengthens the
ontological dimension of Plotinus’s use of analogy and it will be useful now
to examine some of its features more closely. In fact the interpretation of
levels of reality as a series of successive images from the One downwards
until the final image in matter is one of the chief integrating elements of the
hierarchical structure of the Plotinian universe. The image relationship of
levels of reality is frequently expressed without any suggestion of analogy.
For example Intellect is an ἴνδαλμα of the One, the only direct consequence
of this being that this secures its οὐσία (VI.7.40,19). In a long sequence
beginning in V.1.6, Soul, Intellect, and the One are linked with each other
as images: ‘a kind of image of the archetype from which it was produced’
(εἰκόνα οὖσαν οἷον ἀρχετύπων ὧν ἐξέφυ, V.1.6,33-4), the qualification οἷον
indicating that Plotinus is aware of the metaphorical implications of the
vocabulary he is using. And the double activity concept is introduced to
help to explain this.13 Decreasing clarity is also a mark of the procession of
entities and is here noted in Soul compared with Intellect: ‘but Soul’s ex-

_________
13 V.1.6,34. The double activity theory has in fact already been introduced in V.1.3 but
without a reference to image.
10 ANDREW SMITH

pression is obscure—for it is the ghost14 of Intellect’ (ἀμυδρὸς ὁ λόγος ὡς

γὰρ εἴδωλον νοῦ, V.1.6,46). Similarly inferiority to the One is marked by its
image status: ‘a lesser image’ (ἔλλατον ὂν εἴδωλον, V.1.7,40). The image
nature of Soul is also a means by which it can get to know Intellect: ‘con-
sidering itself to be an image of Intellect’ (εἰκόνα θεμένην ἑαυτὴν εἶναι
ἐκείνου, V.3.8,47) because soul’s life is a ‘reflection and likeness,’ ἴνδαλμα
καὶ ὁμοίωσα, of Intellect (V.3.8,49). Similarly in V.3 the soul possesses an
image or images of intellect and of what is at the level of intellect. It is then
through these images that it can get to know the level of intellect. V.3 taken
as a whole provides in context a rich use of the image device along with
other analogies and a striking use of the light concept which directly
equates it with Intellect. At the level of intellect necessity takes the place of
persuasion, i.e., intelligibles are grasped immediately, whereas at the level
of soul discursive reason (persuasion) is employed. At this level we want
somehow to grasp the archetype through its image (οἷον ἐν εἰκόνι τὸ
ἀρχέτυπον θεωρεῖν ἐθέλοντες, V.3.6,17-8). But the soul, even if identical
with its own thought, cannot have self-knowledge in the sense of being
identical with the archetype because it is not the archetype but the image.
But it can have a form of self-knowledge if it fits to the traces in the soul
what it receives from above:
But since the things which it speaks are above, or come to it from above,
whence it also comes itself, it could happen to it, since it is a rational principle
and receives things akin to it, and fits them to the traces in itself, in this way to
know itself. (V.3.6,25-8; Armstrong, V, 91)
Thus the images which soul receives from intellect are matched with the
traces of intellect which it already has. It can do this because it is a ‘rational
principle’ (λόγος) and what it receives is ‘akin’ (συγγενῆ). Like is thus per-
ceived by like. He now refers to a process of transition in which the image
is transposed to intellect (μεταθέτω τοίνυν καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἀληθῆ νοῦν τὴν
εἰκόνα, V.3.6,28-9). This is similar to the stage in V.3.4,29 when we are
said to ‘become intellect.’ What now follows is concerned with establishing
intellect itself as a self-knower and it is only in V.3.7,20 that we return to
soul through the notion of the double activity of intellect, with the highest
part of the soul identified with the external activity of intellect.15 Thus is
established the link of kinship and likeness (fire to fire) which enables the
transition from soul to intellect. Yet in what follows the difference of intel-

_________
14I have kept here Armstrong’s translation of εἴδωλον as ‘ghost’ as it expresses well the
pejorative concept of image intended in this passage.
15 Note how its closeness to intellect is emphasized—οἷον εἴσω, 27.
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 11

lect and soul is again emphasized. Soul and the logoi in it are images.16
Light which is intellect illuminates the soul (V.3.8,23). It is through the
ἴχνος of this light in the soul that we come near to the higher light by realis-
ing that it is more beautiful. It is known to us ‘through that very power’—
its own self-illumination. Soul is led back up to it by reasonings (V.3.8,46)
which involve it in seeing itself as its own image. The passage concludes by
stating that soul becomes as like intellect as it can so that we can somehow
see intellect. This conclusion seems much weaker than the situation envis-
aged in chapter 4 although the very final words of the treatise (V.3.17,30f)
with their light image reminiscent of Plato’s Republic and of the earlier part
of the treatise, do seem to suggest seeing intellect by intellect. This is
worked out in some detail in V.3.16. At the end of this chapter Intellect,
insofar as it has Intellect and life is said to have a μίμημα of something cor-
responding to them in the One. The language is deliberately vague: . . .
καθὸ τοῦτο (sc. the One) ζῇ . . . ὅ τι δέποτέ ἐστι τοῦτο. This is no doubt
similar to the ὑπερνόησις which is ascribed to the One insofar as it is the
source and ἀρχή of intellect.17 It is in the same sense too that Intellect sees
light with light, i.e., the light of the One with its own light. This passage
also points again to the Timaeus definition of image (see on V.3.8,13
above). In the strict sense all is image except the One.
V.8 as part of the ‘great treatise’18 affirming the goodness and beauty of
the universe against the gnostics is a good example of the affirmation of the
value of what is, ontologically, an image. One may note the declaration to-
wards the end of the treatise (V.8.12,13f) that ‘it is utterly unlawful that
there should be no beautiful image of beauty and reality’ (Armstrong, V,
277). It is a natural image and as such is everlasting.19 The ontological im-
age concept plays a strong role in this treatise. The way in which it is intro-
duced is interesting, for the first mention of εἰκών (V.8.3,11) is, at the least,
neutral and probably means no more than ‘how are we to describe it?’ But
there follows a gradual transition to an ontological signification; the follow-
ing sentence explains (γάρ, V.8.3,11) the difficulty which is implicitly ex-
pressed in the previous question. Every εἰκών is bound to be something
inferior (taken from what is worse). Why (γάρ, V.8.3,12)? Because an im-
age must come into being from Intellect.

_________
16 Soul is already described as an image of Intellect in 4,21.
17 See Beierwaltes 1961, 94.
18 II.9, II.8, V.5, and V.8 formed one whole treatise which was divided up by Porphyry to
accommodate his ‘enneadic’ arrangement of Plotinus’s treatises.
19 V.8.12,19. As in VI.4 this idea is also linked with the eternal transmission of light.
12 ANDREW SMITH

The phrase has strong ontological overtones—ἐκ νοῦ γένεσθαι—which

are confirmed by the injunction to refrain from an image in favour of know-
ing Intellect at its own level through our own intellect which is like the part
of gold which is similar to the total gold of the gold bar. V.8.4-6 concern
themselves with a description of Intellect, as it were, from and through its
own level (of course Plotinus is in fact using words and so operating at the
level of discursive reason). The use of the term ἀγάλματα to describe the
Intelligibles is a striking feature of these chapters. It is only at V.8.6,10 that
he returns to the topic left hanging in V.8.3, where the image was deemed
to be inadequate. It is the level of discursive reason which represents as an
εἴδωλον the contents of Intellect (V.8.6,10), and this comes into the soul as
an ἴνδαλμα or εἰκών of Intellect. Plotinus makes an interesting side remark
at this point where he wonders whether the image is impressed ‘either by its
direct action or through the assistance of soul.’ But discussion of this is ex-
plicitly put aside. We will also have to omit discussion of this important
point; for our main interest here is noting how a transition has been effected
from a neutral to an ontological meaning of ‘image.’ An ‘image’ of Intellect
is not simply an illustrative metaphor (in fact V.8.5-6, which are supposed
to be delineating the true Intellect as it is, are full of metaphors!), but rather
the ontological level which is immediately engendered by it and which,
through its likeness, enables the soul to grasp Intellect but in a deployed and
less unified mode. It is because soul is an image of Intellect that it has an
image of intellect. The culmination of Plotinus’s argument is the demon-
stration that this world too has its archetype in the Intelligible World. And
so it is now introduced (V.8.6-13) as an example of the ἀγάλματα that con-
stitute the Intelligible World. The Intelligible model (παράδειγμα20) is the
archetype (V.8.12,10) of this world whose likeness to it as an εἰκών
(V.8.8,20) is ensured by the demiurge (V.8.8,18f, here exploiting the word
ἀφομοιῶσαι in the text cited from the Timaeus.) This ‘imitation’ which is
an essential aspect of the image relationship is described further in
V.8.12,15-7:
This image imitates the archetype in every way: for it has life and what be-
longs to reality as a representation of it should, and it has its being beauty since
it comes from that higher beauty; and it has its everlastingness in the way
proper to an image (Armstrong, V, 277).21
_________
20 A reference to Tim. 37c7f, which is cited later at V.8.8,17-8. But note that Plotinus
seems to have had a different text from ours or has made a mistake; instead of ὅμοιον . . .
ἐπενόησεν ἀπεργάσασθαι, Plotinus has αὐτὸ βουλήθη ἀφομοιῶσαι. He also omits τε καὶ
εὐφρανθεῖς. Has he confused this passage with 30d2 which has ὁμοιῶσαι βουληθεὶς?
21 μιμεῖται δὴ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον πανταχῆ· καὶ γὰρ ζωὴν ἔχει καὶ τὸ τῆς οὐσίας, ὡς μίμημα,
καὶ τὸ κάλλος εἶναι, ὡς ἐκεῖθεν· ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὸ ἀεὶ αὐτοῦ, ὡς εἰκών. Does the use of three
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 13

It seems unlikely that any particular distinction is being made here between
the ways in which each of these elements is present. It is enough to note the
four elements themselves: life, being, beauty, and eternity, which are
deemed adequate within the restricted terms of Plotinus’s polemic (he is
concerned to prove the eternity, beauty, and relatedness to being of the uni-
verse) to constitute a complete (πανταχῇ) imitation or image. We should
also note that each of these must be at a lower level than its archetype. The
world is sempiternal rather than eternal, it does not have the fullness of be-
ing but that grade or portion (τό) of being appropriate to its level. Elsewhere
he notes the existence of different grades of life22 and the same could be
said of beauty (see I.6).

V. Analogy of Light

A more challenging ‘analogy’ is that of light, traceable back, of course, to

the sun, line, and cave in Plato’s Republic. Again it may, as I suggest it is in
Plato, seem at first sight to be purely illustrative—a vivid way of communi-
cating an idea which cannot or can only imperfectly be communicated in
propositional terms. But Plotinus not only sees light at different levels as
instances of the working of divine causality as in the case of fire, but be-
cause for him light is incorporeal there is an even greater ontological link
between light in our universe with the light emitted ultimately by the One,
i.e., light will turn out to be essentially the same entity (though with differ-
ent manifestations) at each level, more importantly the same entity in both
the Intelligible and material worlds. Thus in those passages where Plotinus
is clearly employing an ontology of light in this metaphysically charged
sense, light itself may not strictly be said to play a role even as an analogy,
let alone as a metaphor.
Plotinus makes frequent use of light analogies to explain how the One,
Intellect, Soul and souls relate to each other and to the physical world. Un-
like other analogies, however, that of light appears to be employed by him
not only metaphorically and as an instance but as a really existing activity at
the highest levels. Werner Beierwaltes identified many years ago a meta-
physics of light in Plotinus as a harbinger of the sort of theory of metaphys-
ical light which is found in medieval thinkers. But his interpretation of Plo-
tinus has been challenged by Ferwerda, who sees nothing but metaphor in
_________
different words (μίμημα, ἐκεῖθεν, εἰκών) indicate that Plotinus wants to make any distinction
between how these attributes are communicated? The latter might be a reference to Tim. 37d6
αἰώνιον εἰκόνα and 48a1 μίμημα.
22 I.4.3, 15f.
14 ANDREW SMITH

the light analogies in the Enneads and accuses Beierwaltes of, amongst oth-
er things, ignoring important introductory words such as οἷον. Did Plotinus,
then, hold a metaphysics of light? A re-examination of this issue will help
our enquiry into analogy as a whole. I will deal with the problem here under
two main headings. Firstly we will examine Plotinus’s concept of the incor-
poreality of light and then we will ask what evidence there is that he held a
theory of a really existent form of intelligible light.

VI. Light as Incorporeal

There are three main passages in the Enneads which may be adduced to
show that Plotinus thought that light is incorporeal. We will begin with his
discussion of the nature of the heavenly bodies (II.1). His starting point for
the discussion of light is Plato’s comments on the formation of the universe
and the role of the four elements in the Timaeus (39b4-5 and 55df). Plato
regards light as a form of fire which produces flames and thence light, but
Plotinus goes further and makes the claim that light is incorporeal:
So he (Plato) prevents us from thinking that it (the sun) is made of anything
but fire, but by fire he does not mean either of the other kinds of fire but the
light which he says is other than flame, and only gently warm. This light is a
body, but another light shines from it which has the same name, which we
teach is incorporeal (II.1.[40] 7,23-8; Armstrong, II, 29, 31).
Thus the sun, according to Plotinus, is itself a corporeal light (a species of
fire) which emits an incorporeal light. This bodily light is elucidated for us
by another passage23 in which he distinguishes two types of light, an incor-
poreal light which is described as the external activity of the internal light
of the ‘luminous body.’ It is presumably the luminous body rather than the
light within it that is corporeal. And so light itself is never corporeal.24 This
is in other respects an important passage. It comes towards the end of a long
treatise on ‘Difficulties about the Soul’ which was divided into three by
Porphyry.25 The immediate issue is whether perception requires a medium,
something which he wants to deny. In order to strengthen his rejection of
air as a medium he argues that even light does not need air as a medium,
since light is not a quality or an affection (which would mean that it would
_________
23
IV.5.7,33-4.
24
In this passage (IV.5.7,41) the external light is said to be completely incorporeal
(ἀσώματον δὲ πάντως), presumably since the internal light is closely bound with the sun as a
body and so, whilst in itself incorporeal, could, because of its close connection with the sun’s
body, be deemed to be less incorporeal.
25 IV.3; 4; 5.
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 15

have to belong to something) but is an activity (ἐνέργεια).26 It is striking

that in this chapter he then compares light to soul rather than the reverse!
The activity of light is like the activity or life of soul since light exists inde-
pendently of air.
But, just as life, being an activity, is activity of the soul, and if something,
body for instance, is there, it is affected, but life also exists if this something is
not there, what would prevent this being so also in the case of light, if it is a
kind of activity?27 (IV.5.6,28-31; Armstrong, IV, 303)
But the discussion about light now becomes more involved and it seems to
take an unexpected turn away from the issue of a medium when he asks
whether light perishes or returns to its source when there is no body present
to receive it.28 The solution of this question, he then adds, will help with a
previous problem. This must surely refer to IV.4.29,9f, where soul is com-
pared to heat and light and where the question of what survives of light or
soul when a receptacle is no longer available is set aside for the moment29
as an aporia. At the very end of this chapter the fate of soul and light is
clearly treated as a parallel problem. The activity of soul and of light are not
identical, but light is not here simply as an analogy, but a metaphysical enti-
ty on the same level as that of lower ‘immanent’ soul. If we return to IV.5.7
we note there that the internal and external activity concept is applied to
light and, more surprisingly,30 the mirror-image is also adduced as an ex-
ample of an ‘activity’ which depends on the mirrored object. The point is
not only that the image depends on the object but also that it exists inde-
pendently of the mirror. He finally comes back to soul whose relationship to
body is clearly seen as a parallel case along with mirror-image and light.
Has Plotinus succeeded in casting any further light on the issue which he
had postponed from IV.4.29? Two new factors have been introduced: light
is an activity and is incorporeal. This allows him to explain how immanent
light or soul life does not perish.31 And, more to our present purpose, he
clearly holds that light is an existent incorporeal entity with its own activity.
_________
26 IV.5.6, 14.
27 IV.5.6, 28-31.
28 Beginning of IV.5.7, 1ff.
29 IV.4.29,40.
30 Plotinus may be simply recalling his use of natural images in general, but may also
have been reminded of the concept by earlier passages in the treatise on Soul Problems, e.g.,
IV.3.11,7, the world ‘catches’ the logoi like a mirror; 12,1, the mirror of Dionysus to express
the dangerous attractiveness of images; metaphysically more significant is 30,10f on the neu-
trality of phantasia like a mirror in the reception of logoi. It is the logoi themselves that are
active in the explication of thoughts.
31 The argument is that light/life depend only for their external manifestation on a recep-
tacle. The lack of a receptacle does not affect the activity itself.
16 ANDREW SMITH

Finally in VI.4.7, 31, he refers to light as an incorporeal power (δύναμις)

which provides light to make a body luminous. He is concerned here not
with any externally transmitted light but rather with a light which is ‘inter-
nal’ to and the cause of a body’s luminosity. Even though he is not thinking
here directly of the sun, but is conducting a kind of thought experiment in
the removal of bodily bulk and location, the idea is consonant with what we
have said above about the incorporeality of internal light.

VII. Metaphysical Light

The passages we have examined which posit the incorporeality of light have
also strongly suggested that light is no mere abstraction but an incorporeal
entity in its own right. I will now examine a number of other passages
which seem to lead to the same conclusion. We will begin with VI.7.16,21-
31 in which intellect is said to see its contents:
. . . in a light, receiving this light too from the giver of them. This is why that
Good is said to be the cause not only of substance but of its being seen. And
just as the sun, which is cause for sense-objects of their being seen and their
coming into being, is also in some way cause of sight—and therefore is neither
sight nor the things which have come to be—in this way also the nature of the
Good, which is the cause of substance and intellect and light, according to our
analogy, to the things seen there and the seer, is neither the real beings nor in-
tellect but cause of these, giving by its own light thinking and being thought to
the real beings and to intellect. (Armstrong, VII, 139, 141; emphasis added)
This appears to start off with a metaphorical use of light and then takes its
Platonic source of reference from the sun analogy of Republic.32 But then
we see that the light is attached not to the analogue, the sun, but to what it is
explicating, the Good, and that light is put on the same level as substance
and Intellect as being caused by the Good. The three are repeated in the
next line where he says that the Good is the cause of real beings
(=substance), and of Intellect, and then he adds ‘light’ which is seen as a
causal force in itself (by its own light). Thus the One both has light and
gives light, and it gives substance and Intellect by means of this light. An-
other passage points to the same conclusion. In V.3.8,20f where he com-
pares intellectual with physical vision, a major point of comparison is the
role of light at both levels. Now light plays an important role in Plotinus’s
theory of vision,33 and it is not an analogy. This passage also makes no sug-
_________
32Ferwerda thinks that this passage does not directly identify the Good and light as in the
translations of McKenna and Cilento but not of Harder.
33 See Emilsson 1988, 41-6.
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 17

gestion that the light of intellectual vision is a metaphor but explores care-
fully the different role that light plays at the higher level:
For here below also sight, since it is light, or rather united with light, sees light:
for it sees colours; but in the intelligible world seeing is not through another
[medium], but through itself, because it is not [directed] outside. Intellect
therefore sees one light with another, not through another. Light then sees an-
other light; it therefore sees itself. And this light shining in the soul illuminates
it; that is, it makes it intelligent; that is, it makes it like itself, the light above.
(V.3.8,19-25; Armstrong, V, 97, 99)
Not only is light attributed directly to Intellect and the One, but a clearly
metaphysical conclusion, that Intellect sees itself, is drawn from the light
concept. We cannot speak here of analogy since he is not inferring from the
role of light in physical vision that there is a similar role in intellectual vi-
sion. This fact is accepted. The procedure here is one of comparison. We
have here then an example of a metaphysical theory of light at the level of
the One and Intellect as described by Beierwaltes. It then seems valid to
interpret the reference to light in the first line of our passage in a realist
sense. It also seems valid to interpret the following chapter in the same way.
Here Soul is described as an image of Intellect and is said to preserve some-
thing of its light like the light from the sun:
What remains of soul is this which we said was an image of Intellect preserv-
ing something of its light, like the light from the sun which, beyond its spheri-
cal mass, shines around it and from it. (V.3.9,7-10; Armstrong, V, 101)
In addition to its proximity to the previous passage we might also note that
the analogy of the sun is here not explaining another phenomenon such as
‘activity’ or image, but light; i.e., there is sunlight and Soul or Intelligible
light. The passage then goes on to compare them, the difference being that
sunlight is linked to place (air34). The light which the soul receives from
Intellect is not located in space.
Many of the other passages which mention light are more readily inter-
preted as analogies, 35 but just as many are ambiguous. 36 The ease with
which he can slip from an analogy to identity is illustrated by the following:

_________
34 This does not contradict what is said in IV.5.7. Light is inter-fused with air and so
linked to a body but as an activity and not as a quality.
35 VI.8.18,33 the One is like (ὥσπερ) a light which illuminates Intellect as its image.
36 VI.7.21 and 22 speak of light from the Good. This could be metaphorical; but in view
of the realist nature of VI.7.14 we may incline to see more than the metaphorical. The same
may be the case with VI.7.41,5 εἰ οὖν φῶς τὸ νοεὶν, and VI.7.17, 35-6. Intellect is a light to
the soul as the One is to Intellect. V.3.12,40 (intellect as activity flowing from the One like
light from the sun) may also be realist in view of V.3.8. In V.8.14 we have a Sun in the Intel-
ligible world.
18 ANDREW SMITH

The First, then, should be compared to light, the next to the sun and the third to
the celestial body of the moon, which gets its light from the sun. For Soul has
intellect as an external addition which colours it when it is intellectual, but In-
tellect has it in itself as its own, and is not only light but that which is enlight-
ened in its own being; and that which gives it light is nothing else but is simple
light giving Intellect the power to be what it is. (V.6.4,14-21; Armstrong, V,
211)
The passage begins with an obvious analogy; the One is no more light than
Intellect is the sun or Soul the moon. Then the point of the analogy, the se-
quence pure light, light, reflected light which produces colour, is woven as
a metaphor (‘colours’) into the straight description of the relationship of
Intellect and soul. Finally the transition is made to a direct identification of
Intellect with light (‘is . . . light’) and the One with ‘simple light.’ It would
be easy to dismiss this as no more than an ornamental or literary device, but
if we agree that Plotinus offers us elsewhere a metaphysics of intellectual
vision which involves, as signaled by the brief allusion here, the assimila-
tion of Intellect’s light with that from the One, it would be wrong to ignore
the realist meaning of light in this sentence. For metaphor is a powerful
form of expression and may at times be taken in the strong sense of x is y
rather than x is like y. The transition from analogy through metaphor to
identity is just as cogent, and perhaps more cogent, than the reverse process
of reducing identity to metaphor and analogy. Finally, if we need to be re-
minded of the vivid reality of Plotinus’s intelligible universe we need only
look to the following:
All things there are transparent, and there is nothing dark or opaque; every-
thing and all things are clear to the inmost part to everything; for light is trans-
parent to light. Each there has everything in itself and sees all things in every
other, sol that all are everywhere and each and every one is all and the glory is
unbounded; for each of them is great, because even the small is great; the sun
there is all the stars, and each star is the sun and all the others. (V.8.4,4-10;
Armstrong, V, 249 )
The sun and stars of the intelligible world are not, of course, identical in a
crude material sense with the sun and stars of the physical world; but as
their archetypes they are even more authentically sun and stars. The same,
too, must apply to light. In fact a few lines on he refers to light as it is mani-
fested in the physical world and distinguishes its operation, i.e., its external
expression, from that of intelligible light.
It is as if one were to suppose that in the case of this visible heaven of ours
which is luminous that the light which comes from it was born to be the stars.
Here, however, one part would not come from another, and each would be only
a part; but there each comes only from the whole and is part and whole at once.
(V.8.4,19-23; Armstrong, V, 251)
 IMAGE AND ANALOGY IN PLOTINUS 19

But, in essence, light is an incorporeal continuum from the Intelligible

down throughout the material universe.
We have seen how Plotinus can employ light as a metaphor and also as a
metaphysical principle in its own right which links the Intelligible and ma-
terial realms. In this latter sense it is no longer even an analogy. But that
does not prevent Plotinus in other contexts from also exploiting light as an
analogy. We may point to an application of light, in this case clearly as an
analogy, to an issue which we might find more immediately engaging phil-
osophically than the nature of transcendent light; it occurs in his attempt to
explain the way in which an incorporeal entity, the soul, may be said to be
present to body. In a sequence of explorations in IV.4 and the end of IV.5
Plotinus uses heat and light as analogies to solve this issue. The detailed
discussion with its final preference for the light analogy in this context is a
strong endorsement of the status of analogy as a serious metaphysical prin-
ciple. It also serves as a reminder that in interpreting Plotinus we must be
always sensitive to the different ways in which he employs certain words
and concepts, whether as simple metaphor or as analogy, or, as in the case
of light, sometimes even as directly signifying a real entity.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
 COMMENTARY ON SMITH

GARY GURTLER, S.J.

ABSTRACT
The study of metaphor reveals the nature of Plotinus’s method of philosophiz-
ing as well as analogies between different levels of being and different kinds of
knowing. In terms of method, Plotinus consistently corrects images to remove
from them their physical or corporeal limitations, revealing the activity that can
operate in different ways and on different levels. As a second activity of a fiery
body, light is fundamentally omnipresent or incorporeal, which means it is pre-
sent as a whole and not divided even when present in a body, which is divided.
Although light from sensible bodies is incorporeal as not divided, this does not
prevent it from being moved when those bodies move and from being blocked
by other bodies in its path. Intelligible light is incorporeal in the further sense
that it does not depend on a corporeal source and intelligible objects do not
block it but are transparent in it. Not all second acts are substances, but some
like light, sensible or intelligible, are only activities and not entities.

Metaphor among ancient philosophers has begun to get the attention it de-
serves, whether in the Platonic or Aristotelian traditions. Andrew Smith
retrieves Plotinus’s use of metaphor in two major contexts, the relationship
of levels of reality to one another and our ability to have access to what is
beyond discursive reason. I find this area of metaphor fascinating in my
own study of the ancients, since it helps us to note and deal with their very
different understanding of the nature of language and the possibility and
limits of human knowledge. Let me give a brief résumé of Professor
Smith’s talk and then develop some parallel strategies in Plotinus that clari-
fy and fill out his account.
His talk divides neatly into four parts, fire as double activity, the lower as
image of the higher, the incorporeal nature of light, and the nature of meta-
physical light. Plotinus’s principle of double activity is one of several ways
he has to account for participation in such a way as to preserve both the
transcendence of the higher and the dependence of the lower. Many modern
interpretations have failed to take note of this principle, or of its implica-
tions, and thus strangely designate Plotinus as a monist. As Professor Smith
notes, however, the principle of two activities underlines that the higher
principle remains itself, and that the lower effect is different from and non-
reciprocally related to the higher as its image. Plotinus is in fact taking Ar-
istotle’s account of causality, as an explanation of horizontal change in sen-
sible bodies, and fitting it to the different task of the vertical relation of
lower to higher, accounting now for the Platonic case of sensible instances
 COMMENTARY ON SMITH 21

participating in forms. To accomplish this change, power becomes act, per-

fect and remaining in itself, rather than potency, the receptive character of
matter and the corporeal. This power continues to be infinite, like matter,
but in the transcendent sense of something that remains undiminished in
producing things external to itself. Professor Smith’s analysis of nature and
fire shows, further, how Plotinus extends this scheme to things below the
power and awareness of soul. In the case of nature, the source has such a
minimum level of activity that it is described as dormant, asleep, or even
dead in the case of matter. The notion of image, moreover, expresses how
the lower relates to the higher, with overlapping considerations for the be-
ing and knowing of the thing. Since the lower is an image of the higher, it is
at once both similar and different, allowing for the capacity of metaphor to
bridge the gap between levels. As Professor Smith indicates, this means that
metaphor is not merely illustrative, but in some specific cases also exempli-
fies or is an instance of something true ontologically. Finally, his discussion
of light has two phases, about sensible light as incorporeal (or almost so),
and metaphysical light as characteristic of the intelligible.
To corroborate his claim and perhaps shed some light on it, let me now
add two areas I have found in my own study of metaphor and light in Ploti-
nus. One is his practice of setting up an analogy or metaphor in terms of
sensible phenomena and then correcting it to eliminate the corporeal aspects
entailed by it. The other is a careful look at his understanding of the nature
of light in the key areas mentioned in Professor Smith’s paper, the precise
nature of its incorporeality and its status as a second act flowing from a
source. This will make more explicit where I qualify some of Professor
Smith’s claims.
In treatise VI 4[22], on omnipresence, Plotinus uses several images to
elucidate his notion of powers that are decidedly physical and also omni-
present in another body: strength in a hand (VI 4[22] 7,8-23), a small lumi-
nous mass (7,23-39), and finally the sun as source of light (7,39-47). In
each case, the image illustrates the presence everywhere of an undivided
power, but he then corrects each image to remove its physical aspect so the
incorporeal nature of the soul’s presence to the body can shine forth. The
first image (7,8-23) is of a hand grasping an entire body, a long plank, and
something else (7,10). What happens is that through this contact of hand
and object, the strength in the hand becomes a force or control permeating
the object. This control extends throughout the entire object: when a ball is
thrown, the force propels it completely, and when a plank is carried, the
force extends to the untouched parts of its length and not only the small
portion firmly in one’s grip. In describing this, Plotinus actually enunciates
the Thomistic principle of the limitation of act by potency: the act of the
22 GARY GURTLER

hand is limited by the object. “As the hand touches [a body] so much is its
power, it seems, circumscribed, but still the hand is defined by its own
quantity, not by that of the body it raises and grasps” (VI 4[22] 7,12-15).1
In the context of VI 4[22], this analogy is designed to explain omnipres-
ence, where the activity from the higher power is undivided even when pre-
sent in a body that is essentially divided as corporeal. Omnipresence, how-
ever, is only a different way of delineating the same thing as the theory of
two acts and the nature of an image, and thus clarifies some of the termi-
nology that Professor Smith examines. The power residing in the hand is
the first act, while the force permeating the object is the second. This image
brings out two aspects of the second act, that it is not an entity and that it is
incorporeal in the sense that it is not divided because it is present in the
body as a whole. This second act is incorporeal as an activity, but is none-
theless limited both by the body that receives it and the body from which it
comes. The first act, in addition, remains within itself as a form and pro-
duces a second activity separate from it but dependent on it. The second
activity remains as long as the first activity continues, in this first case end-
ing when the hand lets go of the object. The images of the luminous source
in an enclosed sphere and of the sun shining in the air around us make simi-
lar points. In the case of the luminous source it is not its mass but its power
as luminous, specified as not bodily (οὐ σωματικῇ οὔσῃ, 7,32), that is the
source of light, making explicit what is implicit in the previous image about
the power of the hand and emphasizing the incorporeal status of light as an
activity. The result of this is that light is everywhere within the sphere, be-
cause it illuminates the whole inner surface of the sphere. The image of the
sun also emphasizes the same incorporeality and effect, that the same light
is seen everywhere and is not divided into parts.
In VI 4[22] 7, these images are clearly distinct from the way soul or the
intelligible relate to body. The quantitative nature of all three, the hand, the
luminous body, and the sun, needs to be corrected when applied to the
soul’s presence: first, take away their bodily mass, but leave the power
(δύναμιν) intact as permeating the whole recipient with all its parts, and
then eliminate the externality, allowing the soul to exercise its power from
within. This method of correcting images and analogies drawn from the

_________
1 These images were first examined in my article, “Plotinus on the Soul’s Omnipresence
in Body,” International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2 (2008) 113-127. In a later arti-
cle, “Plotinus on the Limitation of Act by Potency,” The Saint Anselm Journal, 7, 1 (Fall
2009), http://www.anselm.edu/library/SAJ/SAJindex.html, I changed the translation of this
passage significantly; this is the version used here, which is both more accurate and brings out
more clearly that Plotinus is articulating how an active power is limited by what receives it.
 COMMENTARY ON SMITH 23

sense world is habitual in Plotinus,2 and extends to all images, whether they
are illustrative or, as Professor Smith puts it, instances of a higher principle.
In the present case, therefore, while the power of the hand is circumscribed
by the body, it is present in the body in an undivided way. For the two other
images, light as an activity, whether from a luminous mass or the sun, is
incorporeal as undivided in the space or air, but it is still limited by bodies
since the light comes from a corporeal source, is possibly blocked by obsta-
cles that lie in its path, and illuminates the bodies it reaches.
Up to this point, I have merely revised and made more precise my origi-
nal comment on Professor Smith’s paper. Now, however, I need to clarify
some dubia that arose from my initial reaction to his paper, with the impe-
tus both of the discussion during the colloquium itself and the encourage-
ment of the external reviewer. My dubia revolve around statements that
Professor Smith makes about the incorporeal nature of light and its status as
a second activity. He seems at certain points to take light as an incorporeal
entity, with the implication that its incorporeality means it is somehow not
part of the sensible cosmos, although somehow operating within it. This
seems based on the assumption that a second act is always a being or sub-
stance, to use Plotinus’s language. At other points, however, when he dis-
cusses light as an activity, these anomalies disappear. This ambiguity in
understanding incorporeality and the second act forced me to take another
look at some key texts. The resolution is to see that Plotinus takes incorpo-
reality analogously rather than univocally, and that he differentiates a varie-
ty of second acts overflowing from a source, some of which are substances
and others of which are only activities.
The first problem is the nature of the incorporeal, and I argue that it has a
more general application, indicating how some activities are present in bod-
ies without being divided by them. These activities tend to be like the pres-
ence of soul to bodies, which Plotinus argues in VI 4[22] is omnipresent to
body as present simultaneously to the whole body. This is in contrast to
qualities, such as white, which are present in bodies in a divided way. In the
image of the hand, for example, its activity of grasping the object illustrates
this incorporeal presence in a body or even a collection of bodies. While
such activities are incorporeal as not divided, this does not imply that they
are absolutely incorporeal, as is the intelligible. The text is explicit that the
power in the grasped objects is circumscribed by them and that the power in

_________
2 Bréhier makes this observation in his “Notice” to V 8[31], where he discusses Plotinus’s
image of intellectual knowledge as like seeing in chapter 4, giving four ‘suppressions’ of
characteristics of sensible vision to allow for a correct understanding of intellectual vision;
Plotin Ennéades (Paris, Société d’édition «Les Belles Lettres», 1931) vol. V, 129.
24 GARY GURTLER

the hand is also limited by its quantity. Turning next to the small luminous
mass in an opaque sphere, Plotinus indicates again this dual limitation, but
with the difference that light is an activity occurring at a distance and so
independent of touch. The luminous mass, a fiery body of some kind, is at
the center of the sphere and light comes from it illuminating its opaque in-
ner surface and filling the sphere with light. This surface thus functions as
the recipient of the activity of the fiery body and its illumination causes
light to be everywhere present in the enclosed sphere. Without this limiting
surface, light would go out from the luminous center, but, in coming to rest
in no object, the light would not be present everywhere. As Plotinus points
out in IV 5[29] 3, beacons and signals can be seen on a dark night, but they
do not illuminate the air between them and an observer.
The image of the sun and its light, further, are crucial both for Plotinus’s
understanding of the nature of light and of its role as an analogy for under-
standing the intelligible, tracing back to the simile of the sun in the Repub-
lic and the discussion of light in the Timaeus, which Plotinus discusses in
the passage Professor Smith examines from II 1[40] 7. Like the other two
images in VI 4[22] 7, the light from the sun is incorporeal as not divided.
This is confirmed in IV 5[29] 7, where Plotinus takes the light within the
sun as its substance and as “greater and like the principle and fount of the
outer activity” (7,14-15), which is the light coming from it and not separat-
ed from it, adding that this light is “totally incorporeal, even though it be-
longs to a body” (7,41). This secondary light is incorporeal as an activity
that is not divided by the air or space between the sun and the bodies lighted
or colored by it. As an incorporeal activity, it continues to be defined by the
body from which it comes as well as the body which receives it. In II 1[40]
7, finally, Plotinus examines the sun as a body made up completely or most-
ly of the element fire, with another light shining from it that is incorporeal.
Nothing here implies that this secondary light is incorporeal in a transcend-
ent sense as belonging to the intelligible, but rather Plotinus emphasizes its
subordination and dependence on the sun when it is described as the flower
or splendor of the sun, which is really the clear or bright body. There is
nothing to indicate that this light is an entity, much less that is in intelligible
in nature.
Let me now consider more carefully the nature of the two activities, that
constituting the substance and that proceeding from the substance, which,
as Professor Smith notes, has IV 5[29] 7 as its locus classicus. At IV 5[29]
7,13, Plotinus begins by placing the inner activity of a luminous body and
the outer activity flowing from it in the context of the relationship of any
being that remains what it is and has an activity coming from it as its image.
This second activity can be strong or weak, but when it is strong and pro-
 COMMENTARY ON SMITH 25

jects far out, “it is necessary to think that it is there, where the active and
powerful source is, and also at the point where it projects” (IV 5[29] 7,22-
23). This emphasizes an aspect of light that was also present in VI 4[22] 7,
that light does not involve touch, but is at the source and at the body
illuminated simultaneously, jumping over the intermediate space. The
nature of light as an activity is more prominent here, moreover, since it is
an activity that relates two bodies, the source as a fiery body and the
recipient as potentially colored. “But the light itself entirely in such bodies
is primarily that kind of substance which relates to the form of a primarily
luminous body. When such a body has contact with matter, color is
produced” (IV 5[29] 7,35-38). Reading this passage carefully, the light
inside a fiery body is related to its substance or form. This means that the
fiery body is a form, a power in Plotinus’s sense, that is capable of affecting
some matter as potentially like it.
Plotinus indicates that this other body is affected by the fiery body as
form when it receives the activity of this form and becomes colored or
illuminated. Since this contact between the two bodies is accomplished over
a distance, it is the fiery body’s second activity which actually establishes
the contact. Further, the relation between the two bodies is like that of soul
and body, a reversal which Professor Smith calls to our attention. This
analogy to soul, however, does not elevate the sun to the rank of the intelli-
gible, but indicates something about the nature of the change in the colored
body. It is not like painting the body, where the quality belongs to the body
and does so as divided by the parts of the body. In the case of the color that
light gives as an activity, this coloring over does not belong to the receptive
body, but remains as it were separate, since the activity of light is itself sep-
arate and dependent on the body producing it. Like one’s image in a mirror,
it remains only as long as there is uninterrupted contact between the light
from the sun and the body colored.
Finally, there is one final issue involved in Plotinus’s insistence on the
incorporeality of light, and that is in terms of the wholeness of any object
present in light, which brings out another facet of its indivisibility, which is
true also of sound for hearing (cf. III 6[26] 12).3 Plotinus emphasizes that
the eye receives the whole object and not some singular part of it that would
be directly related to sight if it were corporeal. “But as it is, it is all seen,
and whoever are in the air see it at the front and from the side, from afar,
nearby, and behind, as long as their view is not blocked; so that each part of
_________
3 In the case of both seeing and hearing, Plotinus argues that air is not needed as a medi-
um. While this inclusion of hearing might seem merely wrong in terms of the nature of sound
as vibrating air, Plotinus is making a different sort of point about the nature of sensing, where
the whole sound is heard or the complete object is seen.
26 GARY GURTLER

the air has the whole seen thing, such as a face” (IV 5[29] 3,32-36). Seeing
the whole object is what distinguishes seeing from touch and also from be-
ing warmed. Plotinus understands, first, that if seeing were like touch, each
part of the object would produce an affection on a particular portion of the
air, and the eye would only be affected by the small portion that fits the size
of the eye; seeing would be like looking through a narrow tube fitted to eye
and a part of the object of the same size. Second, if seeing were like being
warmed, then the object would not be seen but the image in the air immedi-
ately before the eye. His use of the mirror clarifies what he means, since
there is nothing between the object and its image in the mirror, and when
the object moves, its image is no longer there. Light makes sight possible,
therefore, by allowing the activity of the object to appear in the mirror di-
rectly and as a whole, without changing the mirror so as to belong to it and
without affecting the air in between.
In conclusion, incorporeality allows Plotinus to account for features of
seeing (or any sensing at a distance) that remain inexplicable if sight were
some corporeal phenomenon and also if light were an incorporeal entity,
more at home at the level of intellect. Light’s corporeal limits are clearly
defined, the fiery body capable of producing light as its activity and the
body that can become colored by the presence of light as an activity. Be-
cause light is, however, totally incorporeal (IV 5[29] 7,41), it serves as an
apt analogy for the activities of soul and intellect, whose incorporeality is
more complete as depending in no way on a body, whether as a source or
recipient of its activity. Metaphysical light is similar to sensible light as an
activity, but without its limitations. Thus, metaphysical light allows intelli-
gible objects to be known, but there is no opaqueness at all so that intelligi-
ble objects are completely transparent to one another and none interfere
with the knowing of another. Further, metaphysical light is a second activity
of the One, present in intellect in its return to the One after its initial consti-
tution in being. Intellect itself is thus a second activity, but one that is in
fact also a substance. Metaphysical light is a subsequent second activity that
allows intellect as a substance to know its content in turning toward the
One, as the source of its intelligibility.4
BOSTON COLLEGE
_________
4 Plotinus distinguishes secondary activities, like intellect, that are also substances in their
own right, and others that are not substances but only activities. Fiery bodies, in fact, over-
flow with more than one such activity, with both light and heat mentioned in IV 5[29] 4,25-
30. Light operates at a distance and thus does not need to affect the air in between, but heat
warms by touch, so the warmth is not the same all around but is distributed through the
neighboring air part by part, each part of it reaching the body nearest to it. Light retains an
incorporeal dimension as not being divided in the air, while heat is the kind of activity that is
no longer incorporeal but divided in the air as the affected body.
 SMITH / GURTLER BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bréhier, E. 1931. Plotin Ennéades. Paris: Société d’édition «Les Belles Lettres».
Emilsson, E. K. 1988. Plotinus on Sense-Perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Ferwerda, R. 1965. La signification des images et des métaphores dans la pensée de
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———. 2008. Plotinus on the Soul’s Omnipresence in Body. International Journal of
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