bodies of beasts and birds; and these two do not contradict Plotinus lightly. The fact is that Plotinus is not vitally interested either in the question of individual survival in time, or in that of rewards and punishments. As Dr. McTaggart says of Hegel, he never attached much importance to the question whether Spirit was eternally manifested in the same persons, or in a succession of different persons.' Dr. McTaggart adds that ‘no philosophy can be justified in treating this question as insignificant.' But perhaps Plotinus and Hegel would agree in answering that it is not so much insignificant as meaningless.

Dr. McTaggart is a strong believer in reincarnation, and his chapter on Human Immortality' is very instructive. In comparing the philosophy of Lotze with that of Hegel, he blames the former for making his God'something higher than the world of plurality, and therefore something more than the unity of that plurality. . . . There is no logical equality between the unity which is Lotze's God and the plurality which is his world. The plurality is dependent on the unity, but not the unity on the plurality. The only existence of the world is in God, but God's only existence is not in the world.' No clearer statement of the fundamental difference between Hegel and Plotinus could be made. The view of Plotinus is precisely that which Dr. McTaggart blames in Lotze. Dr. McTaggart proceeds to say that on this theory any demonstration of immortality is quite impossible. That is to say, unless I am as necessary to God as God is to me, there can be no guarantee that I have any permanent place in the scheme of existence. We have already seen how Plotinus would answer this. Souls have ovcía-real being; but their being is derived, like the light of the

1 Augustine, De Civ. Dei, 10. 30. Porphyrio tamen iure displicuit. Stobaeus, Ecl. I. 1068, οἱ δὲ περί Πορφύριον ἄχρι τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων βίων. Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. 2 (about Iamblichus); and Eneas of Gaza, Theophr. p. 61. Proclus (in Tim. 5. 329) tries to prove that Plato never meant that human Souls can inhabit the bodies of beasts.

? Hegelian Cosmology, p. 6.

moon. They are not constituent factors of God, or of the Absolute, but are created by Him. It is an essential attribute of God that He should create, but His creatures are not parts of His being. Souls are indestructible and immortal because they possess ovoía; there is a qualitative difference between creatures that have ovoía and those that have it not. But the empirical self, about whose survival we are unduly anxious, is a compound which includes perishable elements. And this composite character is found all through nature; even trees have a share in Soul, in true being, and in immortality. Our immortal part undoubtedly pre-existed, as truly as it will survive; but the true history of a Soul is not what Aristotle calls an episodic drama, a series of stories disconnected from each other, or only united by 'Karma.' The true life of the Soul is not in time at all. Dr. McTaggart says that 'the relations between selves are the only timeless reality.' Plotinus would certainly not admit that relations can be more real than the things which they relate; and he would also deny that Souls find themselves only in the interplay with other Souls. On the contrary, it is only in self-transcendence that the individual finds himself; and he is united to his fellows not directly but through their common relationship to God. Dr. McTaggart asks, 'How could the individual develop in time, if an ultimate element of his nature was destined not to recur in time?' But what ground have we for supposing that the destiny of the individual is to ' develop in time,' beyond the span of a single life? It is a pure assumption, like the unscientific belief in the perpetual progress of the race, so popular in the last century.

But a Neoplatonist might arrive at reincarnation by another road. Since the nature of spiritual beings is always to create, is not the Orphic aspiration to escape from the grievous circle' after all a little impious? Must not work, which means activity in time, be its eternal destiny? The active West, on the whole, sym

pathises with Tennyson's Give her the wages of going on and not to die.' Why should not the 'saved' Soul 'go forth on adventures brave and new?' The Orphic and Indian doctrine of release seems to be condemned by the Neoplatonic philosophy, when it has the courage to follow its own path. The beatified Soul has its citizenship in heaven; but it must continue always to produce its like on the stage of time. In what sense these successive products of its activity are continuous or identical with each other is a question which we must leave to those whom it interests. To us their only unity is in the source from which they flow, and in the end to which they aspire.

LECTURES XIV-XVI

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

Νοῦς—νόησις-νοητά

WE have arquivalents for the most important

E have already noticed the peculiar difficulty of

terms in the philosophy of Plotinus. It was unfortunate that we could find no word except 'Matter' for üλŋ, which is above all things immaterial. For Xoyos there is no single English word. It is quite different from the Logos of Christian theology, whom the Christian Platonists invested with the attributes of the Plotinian Noûs.1 'Creative activity' comes near the usual meaning of the word in Plotinus. Yux again is often nearer to Ψυχή 'Life' than 'Soul.' Even more serious is the difficulty of finding a satisfactory equivalent for Noûs. Modern writers on Neoplatonism have chosen 'intellect,' 'intelligence,' 'thought,' 'reason,' 'mind,' 'das Denken.' All these are misleading. Plotinus was neither an intellectualist (in the sense in which Hegel has been called an intellectualist or 'panlogist'), nor, in the modern sense, an idealist. He does not exalt the discursive reason (diávoia or λoyiouós) to the highest place. These are the activities proper to Soul, not to the principle higher than Soul. The discursive reason has its function. in separating, distributing, and recombining the data of

1 Cf. (e.g.) Clement, Strom. 7. 2. 8, čσTIV Tò ŵs dλn0ŵs äрxov Te Kai ἡγεμονοῦν ὁ θεῖος λόγος . πρωτουργὸς κινήσεως δύναμις, ἄληπτος αἰσθήσει. 2 Nemesius (De Nat. Hom. 3. 59) says quite correctly, giving the doctrine of Ammonius: ἡ ψυχὴ ἐν ἑαυτῇ ἐστὶν ὅταν λογίζηται, ἐν δὲ τῷ να ὅταν νοῃ.

experience. In itself, as Aristotle says, it moves nothing.
For this reason, its world is not wholly real. But Nous
beholds all things in their true relations without the
need of this process.
And we shall see in the course of
this chapter how far he is from the view of modern
idealism, that things are real when and because they
appear to a mind which creates and contains them.

By far the best equivalent is Spirit. It need not cause any confusion with TVEUμa, for this word is very little used by Plotinus, and does not stand for anything important in his system. It has the right associations. We think of Spirit as something supremely real, but incorporeal, invisible, and timeless. Our familiarity with the Pauline and patristic psychology makes us ready to accept Spirit, Soul, and Body as the three parts of our nature, and to put Spirit in the highest place.2 St. Paul also teaches us to regard Spirit as superindividual, not so much a part of ourselves as a Divine. life which we may share. In all these ways, Nous and Spirit correspond closely. Then, if we call Nous Spirit, τὸ νοητόν (οι τὰ νοητά) must be the spiritual world. It is more difficult to find words for the verb voeiv, and the substantive vónois. They are usually translated 'to think,' and 'thought,' which is misleading. To think is Xoyiceola, and 'thought' is diavola, both of which belong to the life of Soul. We must be content with 'spiritual perception' or 'intuition' for vónois,3 and 'perceive,'' behold,' or 'know,' for the verb. It will be convenient sometimes to retain the Greek words in the text.

νόησις.

3

In these three-Spirit, Spiritual Perception, and the Spiritual World-we have the trinity in unity in which

1 This does not mean that logic is superfluous in the ascent to the noëtic view of things. Thought is subsumed in the activity of vous. 2 Keyserling says that this psychology is still familiar to all students in the Eastern Church.

3 Cf. 5. 1. 5, čotiv ǹ vónσis opaois ópŵoa. Origen (Contra Celsum, 1. 48) calls it aïo@nois oùk aio@nrh. Nous, for the Christian Platonists, is almost equivalent to Móyos and weûμa, which tend to flow together in their theology.