Transcriber's Notes
This is part of a four-volume set. It contains many references to passages in this volume, othervolumes of this set, and other books by various authors.
In Volume I, links to all four volumes, including the other three at Project Gutenberg, have beenprovided in the cross-reference lists in the first 39 pages.The Concordance in Volume IV also contains linksto all four volumes. No other external links have been provided.
External links are underlined like this; support for them depends on the device and program used to displaythis eBook.
Each volume of this set contains irregularities that are summarized in theTranscriber's Notes at the end of that volume.
VOLUME III.
WORKS OF PLOTINOS
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With
BIOGRAPHY by Porphyry, Eunapius, & Suidas,
COMMENTARY by Porphyry,
ILLUSTRATIONS by Jamblichus & Ammonius,
STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence;
INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by
Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee;
A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia.
M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
Vol. III
Porphyrian Books, 34–45.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS
P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
Copyright, 1918, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie.
All Rights, including that of Translation, Reserved.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, by
George Bell and Sons, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, London.
1. Does manifoldness consist in distance fromunity? Is infinity this distance carried to the extreme,because it is an innumerable manifoldness? Is theninfinity an evil, and are we ourselves evil when we aremanifold? (That is probable); or every being becomesmanifold when, not being able to remain turnedtowards itself, it blossoms out; it extends while dividing;and thus losing all unity in its expansion, it becomesmanifoldness, because there is nothing that holdsits parts mutually united. If, nevertheless, there stillremain something that holds its parts mutually united,then, though blossoming out, (the essence) remains,and becomes manifoldness.
But what is there to be feared in magnitude? If(the essence) that has increased could feel (it wouldfeel that which in itself has become evil; for) it wouldfeel that it had issued from itself, and had even goneto a great distance (from itself). No (essence), indeed,seeks that which is other than itself; every(essence) seeks itself. The movement by which (anessence) issues from itself is caused either by "audacity,"or necessity. Every (being) exists in the highest