ΦANTAIA in Plotinus1
The first section of this article is an Introduction, consisting of a brief historical paragraph and a survey of Plotinus' usage; the second is an annotated translation of the most important chapters; and the third is an index.
Because of the paucity of references and the lack of developed theory, Plato can hardly be considered to have inaugurated the study of imagination or representation. In the Sophist 263D-264B he discusses thought, opinion, and representation. After practically identifying the first two, he describes representation as the condition of thinking when sensation is its cause. Representation, therefore, is a mixture of sensation and opinion.2 So far as the word itself is concerned, Plato does not go far beyond colloquial usage.
Aristotle takes pains to indicate that with him imagination will have a new meaning; and this is natural because, when Platonic omniscience is replaced by Aristotelian abstraction, representation in the form of imagination becomes technically important. Freudenthal has admirably studied the Aristotelian theory. But it is to be noted that even in Aristotle the word has also the wider uses of sense presentation and of thoughts of intellectual objects.3
The materialism and the empiricism of the Stoics obviously requires a strict interpretation of representation, seeing that one type, the comprehensive, is the criterion of truth. Yet not all representations are sensible and come through a sense organ; some are rational, as for example, the representations of incorporeals.4. In fact a proposition may be called a representation. Thus we see that the history of the word before the time of Plotinus does not force a limitation of its significance either to memory-image, since it may occur during sensation, or to any image strictly speaking, since there are representations of non-sensible objects.
When on comes to study Plotinus, who, by the way, does not discuss the subject separately but is involved in it mainly because of the discussion of memory, not only does colloquial usage produce a range of meaning not easily gathered into a single formula, but, further, Plotinus' metaphysics prevents the drawing of any hard and fast line between imagination and the activities above and below it. Unlike Aristotle with his clean-cut distinction, Plotinus merges each faculty with the next; and while the notion of faculty is frequently found, and while there is an apparent tendency to hypostatize each function into a separate little spirit, faculty psychology is perhaps further removed from his system than from than of Aristotle. In fact, it seems that Plotinus had to defend, against the questioning of the more traditional Academicians, his allegiance to the Plato who so sharply separated sensation from reason. But, however he may have satisfied the Platonists, the levels of consciousness are in reality more like the continuity of an inclined plane than the discrete steps which Aristotle's theory suggests.
To develop the subject a survey will be made of the various meanings which Plotinus gives to this word, imagination.
False notions, particularly the false notion that bodily beauty and musical ability contribute to happiness, are representations of imaginations.5 Again, some passions are the result of opinions, as when the opinion that death is imminent causes on to be fearful. "Now imagination takes place in the soul, both the former which we call opinion, and also [the latter], its derivative [fear] which is no longer an opinion but something like a vague opinion or uncritical representation occurring in the lower part of the soul."6 Not only are sense objects, such as the Sun and the stars, objects of representations or imagination, but even the Good itself is capable of being imagined or represented.7
Thus, it is seen that with respect to merely literary usage the range of objects falling under the power of representation is very wide and cannot be restricted to sense image or memory image, but includes emotions, universals, and judgments.
There is in the Enneads no formal definition of imagination, but one passage stands out as more explicit than the others, and besides leads on to other considerations which advance the study. In discussing the freedom from evil of the soul which is not in contact with something inferior to her station, the question, not only of desire, fear, and anger, but of representation also arises. Representation or imagination is then denied to the pure soul on the ground that "imagination is an impact from an irrational, external object, and [the soul] received the impact when it is not indivisible."8
This phraseology, apart from the whole Plotinic background, may seem to resemble and to be based upon Stoic materialism. But Plotinus frequently enough guards against not only Stoic materialism, but also the materialism or behavioristic traces in Aristotle. In addition to the general refutation of these two schools in IV, vii, a more particularized account occurs in III, vi, 1-3. Toward the end of a discussion defending the impassibility of the soul, he asserts that while the soul causes fear, shame, and blushes, it is the body and not the soul which experiences these effects. Then, in a summary which both Heinemann and Brehier believe that Porphyry added, but which in any event is thoroughly Plotinic, imagination is explicitly mentioned. "Imaginations are not like imprints [of seals] in wax."9 The notion of an imprint is again rejected in IV, vi, 1. Sensations, he says here, are not imprints, and consequently memory cannot depend on the conservation of imprints. The remainder of the passage makes the matter perfectly clear. In seeing we grasp an object at a distance. Whatever impression there may be occurs, not in our soul, but at the place in which the object seen is.10 If there were an image in the soul, how could the soul assign a distance to the object? It could not see as separated from itself what actually was in it. Again, the soul recognizes the dimensions of the object seen; but if seeing took place by means of imprints in the soul, how could the extent of a very large object be recognized? And there is the further objection, the most fundamental of all, because it is essential to a realistic epistemology: If we can see only imprints or images, then we do not see the objects themselves.
Representation of imagination, therefore, must not be regarded as a dead impression with depressions and elevations as in wax; nor even as a qualitative change in the organ; but as an activity of the soul in grasping the object.
Whatever is said against materialism or behaviorism, when Plotinus is speaking of sensation, applies with even greater force to imagination, for imagination is on a spiritually higher level than sensation.11 And Plotinus clearly indicates that in sensation one is dealing with an activity of the soul and not with a necessary result of the law of inertia by which impressions are preserved in material stuff. In III, vi, 1, 1, sensations is called an ἐνἐϱγἐἰὰ as opposed to πἀθος, and both here and in IV, vi, 2 sense is said to pronounce judgment. In IV, vi, 3, 15-16, the soul illumines sense objects, which perhaps is an echo of the ancient notion that the eye of the mind resembles a lamp or searchlight. And again, VI, vii, 7 asserts that sense objects are images of intelligible objects and literal sensation is more obscure than the perception of the intelligibles; in fact sensations are faint intellections, and intellections are clear sensations.
Although Plotinus is thus careful to refute materialism and behaviorism, he is by no means blind to the physical conditions, causes, and accompaniments. Discussing freedom and volition,12 Plotinus remarks on the instability of right self-determination apart from right reason and sound knowledge. With nothing by a correct opinion one's freedom would be precarious, for chance and imagination are not dependable guides to duty.
And since imagination is not in our power, how can we class as free agents those who act under its influence? For by imagination we mean imagination strictly speaking, viz., that type excited by bodily passions. For lack of food and drink produces imaginations...
Plotinus continues in this chapter to insist that imagination depends on the condition of the bodily organs.
Frequently he is not so physiological as Aristotle, and speaks only of a disturbance or shattering of a mirror, rendering images impossible. Nothing too scientifically exact is found in IV, iv, 17, 12ff. Something a trifle more explicit is given in IV, iv, 20. This latter chapter argues that desire, at least bodily desires, originates in the living body - of course not in inanimate things - when the body requires for its self-preservation some contrary state. This desire produces a more perfect one in that "nature" which, being the lowest extremity of soul, has been the animating cause of the living body. Next, sensation experiences a representation after which the soul decides to satisfy or deny the desire of the body.
A final illustration of the dependence of imagination on bodily conditions may be taken from IV, iv, 28. A certain bodily organization inclines one to anger; sick people are more irritable than the healthy. Following upon such emotions we have sensation and representation, and by taking cognizance of these the soul decides upon the proper reaction. Not only does the line of causation proceed from below to the soul; the reverse also is possible. The soul, using reflection and perceiving some evil, stirs to anger the hitherto quiet body.13
Not too far removed from the bodily conditions of imagination, and occurring with sufficient frequency to justify separate mention, emotion is named as a result of imagination. The imagination of imminent death causes dear.14 Imagination gives to those who have that faculty the knowledge of what they are suffering.15 Emotion and imagination, as antithetical to true freedom, are mentioned together.16
Consequently, from Plotinus' ethical and mystical standpoint, imagination involves pollution and necessitates purification. To rise to the higher world one must rid the soul of the representations of things here below.17 The end of IV, iii, 31 with chapter 32 does not specify the complete eradication of all earthly experience because they describe a process not yet completed; but the following chapter, IV, iv, 1, which Brehier edits so that it begins in the middle of a sentence - so close is the connection with the preceding - entirely erases the memory of earthly events. To the same effect is the consistent placing of intellection on a higher level. "Intellection is superior to imagination, for imagination stands between the [physical] imprints of nature and intellection."18 Thus, imagination is not the lowest stage in the cosmic hierarchy; not the lowest even among the conscious activities of the soul; nor is it the highest.
So far most of the references cited occur in passages where Plotinus mentions the subject more or less incidentally. The theory itself, as it relates imagination to sensation, to intellection, but chiefly to memory, can best be explained by analyzing the few short chapters which bear directly and intentionally on the subject. This will involve a translation, for various reasons; first, Plotinus has written so explicitly that he ought to be reproduced in full; second, the existing translations are not quite satisfactory, as comparisons will show; and finally - a fact which will prevent this new translation also from being satisfactory - the difficulties of Plotinus' language19 both force a translation to assume the role of an interpretation and render it expedient that an interpretation approximate a translation.
Translation of IV, III, 23.
Each part of the body illumined and animated by the soul participates in the soul in its own peculiar manner. And according to the fitness of the organ for its work the soul gives it a power suited to that work. Thus [5] the power in the eyes is that of sight; the power in the hearing is in the ears; of tasting in the tongue; of smelling in the nose; and the power of touching is present everywhere, for with reference to this type of perception the whole body is present to the soul as an organ.20
Since the organs of touch [10] are in the primary nerves, which also have the power of moving the living being and from which this power distributes itself; and since the nerves have their origin in the brain; that is where [medical men] place the origin of sensation, desire, and in general all functions of life; on the assumption that where the [15] organs take their rise, there is to be situated that which uses them. But if would be better to say that the origin of the activity of the power is there; for it is at the point at which the organ begins to be in motion, that the power of the operator, that power which is suited to the tool, must, so to speak, exert its force; or rather, not the power, for the power [20] is everywhere; but the origin of the activity is there where one finds the origin of the instrument.
Accordingly, the powers of sensation and appetition, since the soul is a sensitive and imaginative21 nature, have reason above them, just as the soul by its lower part neighbors on that which it is above.22 Thus the ancients placed the soul [25] in the uppermost part of every living being, in the head, as being not in the brain but in that principle of sensation by which reason23 is seated in the brain. Something must be assigned to the body;24 but also something that has no community with body whatsoever must participate in that [30] which is a form of soul, of soul capable of accepting the perceptions which come from the reason.25
[Such must be the relative positions of these factors] because the faculty of sensation is a sort of judge, the faculty of imagination is quasi-intellectual, and appetition and desire follow upon imagination and reason. Accordingly, discursive reason is not in the brain as in a place, but because what is there participates in it. And the meaning of [35] localization with respect to the faculty of sensation has been explained.26
Translation of IV, III, 29
Are we then to refer memory to the faculty of sensation so that the faculty of memory and the faculty of sensation will be the same. But if the shade27 remembers also, as was said, the faculty of sensation will be double, or if the faculty of sensation is not the [5] faculty of memory, but is another faculty, then that which remembers will be double. Again, if the faculty of sensation also deals with things learned, it will be the faculty of concepts too.28 Certainly these two must be different. Shall we then assume a common faculty of perception and give to it the memory of both [sense objects and concepts]? Not if it is one and [10] the same thing which perceives sensibles and intelligibles, this suggestion might amount to something, but [since this reverts to the notion that concepts could be sensed] if it must be divided into two, there will none the less be two faculties. And if we give both to each of the two souls29 there would then be four.And in general, why is it necessary to assign memory to that by which we sense, so that both should belong to the same [15] power; and why must one assign the memory of things reasoned about to that by which we reason? Those who reason the best are not the same as those who best remember. Those who benefit equally by sensation do not remember equally well; some have keen senses, but others remember although their sensation is not so sharp.Now, in the next [20] place, if each of these faculties is distinct, and if the one is to remember the things which sensation has preciously grasped, does it not follow that memory must sense what it is to remember? [Not exactly.[ Rather, nothing will prevent the sense-image's30 being a representation-image to that which will remember it; so that memory and retention belong to the faculty of imagination which is a distinct faculty.31 For [25] sensation culminates in imagination; and when the sensation no longer exists the visual image is present to the faculty of imagination. If, then, the imagination of an absent object is already in this faculty, it is remembering, even32 if it endures but a short time. If it remains a short time, the memory is brief; when the image remains longer, they remember better, since the imagination is then stronger and does not readily change so as to unseat and throw off the memory. Memory, then, belongs to the faculty of imagination, and such are the objects we remember.33We should explain the difference among memories either by the difference among the powers themselves, or by exercise or the lack of it, or by bodily admixtures [35] inhering or not, which do or do not cause qualitative changes and disorders. But these matters are discussed elsewhere.
Translation of IV, III, 30
But what about [the memory] of reasonings? Does the faculty of imagination deal with these also? If indeed an imagination follows upon every act of thinking, then, perhaps, when such an imagination, like an image of an object of thought, endures, there might be [5] memory of the thing known. But if not, another explanation must be sought. Perhaps that which is received into the faculty of imagination is the verbal formula34 which accompanies the to the faculty of imagination, concept. For the concept is indivisible, and not yet externalized; it remains internal and escapes our notice. But speech, by unfolding it and leading it from the state of a thought exhibits the thought as in a mirror, and thus [10] we have the perception of it, its conservation, and memory. And therefore, since the soul is always thinking, we have perception whenever it arrives at this stage. For thinking is one thing, but perception of the thinking is another; and while we always think, we do not always perceive. This is because the recipient not only receives thoughts from above, but also sensations from below.
Translation of IV, III, 31
But if memory belongs to the faculty of imagination, and both souls are said to remember, there will be two faculties of imagination. When the two are separate such is the case, but when they are the same thing in us how can there be two and in which of them does imagination occur? For if it occurs in both [5] there will always be two imaginations, for it is not true that one of them deals with intellectual objects and the other with sensibles. For such an arrangement would in every case result in there being two persons35 having nothing in common with each other. If, then, in both, what is the difference?36 And how is it we do not perceive the difference? [There are two possibilities.] When the one is in agreement with the other, so that the [10] faculties of imagination are not separate, though the better dominates, there is but one image, with a sort of shadow accompanying in the other [faculty], like a dim light merging into a greater. But when they conflict and discord arises, the lesser becomes perceptible by itself; but we fail to notice that it is in another [15] because also in general we fail to notice the duality of the souls. For the two form a unity in which the one drives the other. The one sees all things and when it leaves [the union with the other soul in the body] it retains some images from the lower stage but dismisses others, just as we remember little of the conversation of our inferior friends after we have changed to others of higher rank [20] whom we keep in mind very well.37
An Index
The student of Plotinus has no aid for his work comparable to Bonitz's Index Aristotelicus, or even to Ast on Plato. Both Creuzer and Brehier provide an index for a few important passages. For example, in addition to an Index des References dan les Notes, and Index des Textes Cites par Plotin, and an Index Analytique des Matieres, Brehier has an Index des Mots Grecs in which he lists six references for oaioaoBa, one for oUioaoeo, five for oUioaoia and one for oaioaooeeuo. The following will give some idea of the possibilities; it is intended to be complete.
φανταζῳ
I, i, 8; ii, 2, 25; vi, 1, 7; 3, 9; 4, 10; viii, 1, 11; 9, 13.
II, v, 4, 12; ix, 9, 63;
III, v, 1, 36; 4, 17; vi, 5, 11; 7, 17; 7, 21; 7, 23; 7, 26; 13, 17; 14, 14; 14, 26; 15, 22; vii, 1, 21; 2, 5; viii, 9, 14;
IV, iv, 3, 7; 13, 15; vi, 2, 24;
V, viii, 4, 23; 5, 22; 9, 33;
VI, iv, 12, 32; v, 9, 15; 9, 23; vi, 3, 33; 3, 38; vii, 15, 27; 15, 30; 29, 27; viii, 3, 14; ix, 3, 29; 6, 14; 10, 15.
φαντασια
I, i, 9, 8; ii, 5, 20; iv, 10, 19-21; 15, 12; viii, 14, 5; 15, 18;
II, ix, 11, 22;
III, i, 7, 14; vi, 3, 30; 4, 19; 4, 21; 4, 45; 4, 46; 5, 10; 5, 26; 15, 12; 5, 16; 18, 33;
IV, iii, 23, 33; 29, 27; 30, 3 (twice); 31, 5; iv, 3, 7; 4, 6; 8, 3; 8, 18; 13, 12 (twice); 13, 13; 13, 14; 17, 9; 17, 12; 20, 17; 28, 41; 28, 48;
V, i, 10, 26; iii, 3, 6; v, 6, 18; vi, 5, 15; viii, 9, 5; 9, 8;
VI iii, 12, 13; vi, 3, 39; 12, 5; 12, 6; viii, 2, 8; 2, 17; 3, 7; 3, 8; 3, 11; 13, 13; 3, 16; 11, 17; 13, 46.
φαντασις
III, vi, 7, 23; 13, 52; 17, 6.
φαντασμα
III, v, 7, 8; vi, 5, 3; 6, 67; 7, 13; 14, 17;
IV, iii, 29, 23; 31, 11;
V, iii, 11, 7; viii, 9, 12; 9, 14;
VI, vi, 17, 10.
φανταστιχος
IV, iii, 23, 22; 23, 32; 29, 23; 29; 31; 30, 2; 30, 7; 30, 10; 31, 1; 31, 2; 31, 10.
1. From Philosophical Essays in Honor of Edgar A. Singer, Jr., F. P. Clarke and M. L. Nahm, editors. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1942 [1969].
2. Compare Timaeus, 52A; Theaetetus 193B, 195D; Philebus 38B-39C.
3. Compare Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, sub voce. Also Hicks, Aristotle De Anima, 460.
4. Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, II No. 61, 24, 1, 15; and No. 65, 25, 1, 15ff.
5. I, i, 9, 8; I, iv, 15, 12 (The number after the third comma is always the line in Brehier, Plotin Enneades.)
6. III, vi, 4, 18-21.
7. V, viii, 9, 5; VI, viii, 13, 46.
8. I, viii, 15, 18.
9. III, vi, 3, 30.
10. A passage which seems to contradict this is found in I, i, 7, 9-14: "With respect to the soul's power of sensation, it does not have to do with sense objects, but grasps the impressions arising from the sensation in the living being, for these are already intelligibles. External sensation is an imitation of this, but this is in reality more true, for it is an impassive contemplation of forms." The confusion arises because Plotinus has here called this higher activity sensation. Compare below on VI, vii, 7.
11. IV, iii, 29, 22ff; IV, vi, 3, 27ff; IV, iii, 23, 31ff.
12. VI, viii, 3
13. Compare IV, iii, 23, 33.
14. III, vi, 4, 19ff.
15. IV, iv, 13, 14ff.
16. VI, viii, 2, 8ff; VI, viii, 3, 7ff.
17. III, vi, 5; I, viii, 14, 5.
18. IV, iv, 13, 12-13; compare I, i, 2, 28; V, v, 6, 18.
19. Paul Elmer More, Hellenistic Philosophies, 174, says bluntly, "His handwriting was slovenly, his spelling and grammar... faulty... his style so crabbed that the best scholar of his day found it unintelligible and the modern Grecian reads it with agony." His philosophy matches his language: "a meaningless answer to an impossible question raised by a gratuitous hypothesis" (223).
20. Brehier's translation omits the phrase on smelling, and the explanation of the omnipresence of the power of touch.
21. It is to be noted that while, in references from diverse sections, φαντασια includes all forms of representation, when Plotinus comes to the main discussion of the subject, it is imagination more strictly which is considered. Thus he follows Aristotle rather than the Stoics.
22. The general principle by which each power of faculty neighbors on the next higher and next lower is frequent in Plotinus. Brehier translates this particular phrase, "la raison, qui, par sa inferieure, est voisine des parties superieures de ces facultes." But since γειτονουσα is feminine, it must be the soul, or faculties, which neighbors. Mackenna has, "downward, it [the soul] is in contact with an inferior of its own."
23. Brehier makes εχεινος refer to soul. which is impossible; and since αισθητιχῳ is neuter Mackenna is right in referring it to λογος four lines back.
24. Mackenna has the impossible rendering, "the activity of reason."
25. The something assigned to the body is the work of the organs, including the sensory and motor nerves. The soul itself is the other something, which participates in reason, its Form.
26. The remainder of chapter 23, dealing with the vegetative functions, is omitted.
27. I.e., the shade or ghost of Hercules in Hades, while his spirit at the same time is with the gods.
28. Concepts could then be perceived by sensation.
29. The two souls are either the ghost in Hades and Hercules with the gods, or the soul in the body and the soul detached and purified. The latter pair is more in keeping with the general context. The two which precedes and the four which follows must be faculties, and not memories, as Brehier supposes.
30. αισθημα... φαντασμα.
31. Compare Aristotle De Memoria, 450a22ff. Brehier, Notice in loc., 31, remarks that chapters xxix-xxxii present the character of a scientific research after the fasion of Aristotle's De Memoria, "que Plotin a eu probablement sous les yeux en redigeant ces chapitres." In chapter xxv Plotinus appeals to a definition of memory which is often related elsewhere; and most naturally makes memory deal with the past - hardly an Aristotelian discovery however; and IV, vi obviously involves the Aristotelian treatise; but it cannot be said that Plotinus faithfully follows the Aristotelian theory.
32. Mackenna omits this relatively important clause. A textual problem is involved.
33. Brehier translates: "The memory of sense objects belongs, therefore, to imagination." It is true that so far only sense objects have been mentioned; the emphasis however, is not on sensation, but rather on images. Therefore, the word such refers, not to sense objects, but to images, and the question of the memory of concepts is left open for discussion in the following chapter.
34. The difficulty in this passage centers in the word λογου, which Mackenna translates as Reason Principle. This meaning is frequent in Plotinus; compare above IV iii 23, 31 and 32. The notion is still clearer in the cognate words το λογιζομενον. In I vi 2, i5 and 17, it is a divine reason. In I, iv, 3, 17, it is species and therefore nearly Idea. This latter passage continues by ascending from the Idea of Beauty in nature through the Idea in the soul, particularly the wise soul which the Idea illuminates, on to a still superior λογος, yet which does not descend into things but exists in itself, and is more properly termed νους. In the same vein I, iv, 2, 25-27 and the context shows that above sensation there is something which judges, and this is λογος or νους. Obviously the meaning is reason. But, unfortunately, in the passage to which this note is attached, reason makes no sense, for discursive reason itself can hardly be received into the faculty of representation. Therefore Mackenna found it impossible to translate the γαϱ of line 7. This γαϱ, and the exigencies of Plotinus' system as well, require some result of discursion to be received into the faculty of imagination or representation; and Brehier with a stroke of genius translates the λογου as formule varbale. Whittaker, also, in The Neo-Platonists (2nd ed., 51), very briefly makes the same suggestion. Since there are many passage in which Plotinus uses λογος in the sense of word, definition, or argument, no grammatical reason can oppose Brehier's translation.
It may be a stroke of genius on the part of Plotinus also, for the question of the memory of concepts was one which Aristotle did not fully answer. For Aristotle, memory depends on the preservation of a sensible affection, and not on a concept. Further, the continuance of the affection result, not from the activity of the soul, but from the physical condition of the organ. Summarizing 450a22ff. we find that memory is a function of that part of the soul to which imagination belongs, and all sense object are immediately and properly objects of memory, while concepts are objects of memory per accidens.
It is interesting to note how closely Plotinus follows Aristotle in details while coloring them by a foreign metaphysics and to note also how Plotinus makes more definite some matters left vague by Aristotle. Perhaps the earlier philosopher's theory is sufficient to explain the memory or recollection of the concept horse; no difficulty arises from basis it on the image of a particular member of the species. Plotinus, however, with his Platonic orientation, apparently has in mind more complicated notions. What image could be pointed out as the stimulus to the recollection of the meaning of logarithm?
Modern psychologists, in order to preserve the theory that no thought is possible without images, have not only added auditory, gustatory, etc. to visual images - quite properly - but have also, when the other forms of imagery failed to sustain their conclusion, extended the notion of images to kinaesthesia. The word image, however, in the phrase kinaesthetic image, has lost all its literal meaning, and even a gustatory or olfactory image would be difficult to define. It may have been by reason of such vagueness that Plotinus was not willing to subscribe wholeheartedly to the proposition that every act of thought involves an image.
For Plotinus, there are two sorts of imageless thought. First, faced with the difficulty here outlined, he still holds that there should be something akin to an image - a substitute for an image, by which memory and thinking take place. The faculty of discursive reasoning in the soul judges on the basis of images derived from sense. Compare V, iii, 2, 7ff. and V, iii, 3, 6. Sensation is the necessary meaning of consciousness; compare I, iv, 10, 2. Accordingly, when a concept cannot be imaged, there must be some other method of externalizing it. The reason is given in IV, iii, 30, 7ff. Discursive reasoning, by means of verbal formulae, is, therefore, one type of imageless thought. One may note that for Aristotle images are natural, and the same for all men, while language is conventional.
The second type of imageless thought is more properly called such, and to it the above explanations do not apply. The theory above holds for conscious, discursive reasoning. A few lines below the point at which this footnote began Plotinus says that we always think, though we do not always perceive. Sensation, as stated above, is necessary for consciousness, but since mind and soul are prior to sensation, they may act unconsciously. The body is a sort of mirror to the action of mind and soul, so that in sleep or in insanity when the mirror is to a greater or lesser extent disturbed, there is either no consciousness at all, or a confused consciousness. Compare I, iv, 10. When, on the other hand, the bodily organs are properly disposed, the activity of νους is mirrored and we have sensations and images. But the images are not a necessary condition of the thinking which causes them.
The unconscious activity is more noble than sensation and imagination. A person who is intent on reading will not be conscious that he is reading. The best courage, and the best artistic creativity, are unconscious. Consequently, consciousness and imagination weaken the acts which they accompany.
35. Persons here is the translation of ζῳα. Zeller, Die Philosophie de Griechen (3te Aufl.), III 2, 583, is mistaken. "Es ist aber eine doppeete Einbildungskraft ze unterscheiden, die der niederen und die der hoheren Seele; jene bewahrt die sinnlichen Bilder, diese die Gedanken..."
36. Mackenna paraphrases: "And if both order of image act upon both orders of soul, what difference is there in the souls?" Brehier has it: "Si done la memoire est dan les deux imaginations, en quoi different les deux images?" Perhaps the conditional clause is better given by Mackenna; but that it is Brehier who has correctly understood the question is seen in the fact that Mackenna's question receives no answer. Plotinus explains that we do no notice the duality of the images because we are not aware of the distinction between the souls.
37. Compare III, vi, 5, 26 mentioned above, and I, viii, 14, 5.
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