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Thanks to the extraordinary strength of his vast intellect and his irresistible gifts, Plotinus called into life for the last time the best and most significant of what the Hellenic spirit had created in the course of a thousand years. He did not evade the most difficult and torturing riddles of existence. If we read his Enneads, so quickly written, never re-read, yet so full of glowing spirit, it seems to us that reason, in which the Greeks had put their trust, brilliantly justified all expectations; that a world does actually exist, created not by the dead gods, but by reason, which has always lived and still lives today; that philosophy, which had turned ontology into ethics, had solved all the secrets of being; and that sub specie aeternitatis, as it revealed itself to the Greeks, it was no loss that the gods died a natural death and men perished for the glory of wisdom. It seems as though in the last great philosopher of antiquity reason had once again shone with a new radiance and established its mastery in the universe in saecula saeculorum, and as though it would never give up its place. Reason rules; everything must submit. All disobedience to reason is an unjustified, impious, eternally damnable tolma.
So Plotinus taught himself and the rest. He taught how to think, to live, and, I might say, "to be," to be as reason with its self-evident principles would have one be. But while he taught, while he listened to himself, and the others, intoxicated by the nectar of his words, listened to him, somewhere in an invisible, secret corner of his own soul new feelings and premonitions were growing up, and they waxed and a mighty force ripened which was destined to cast down and break asunder the noble altar of wisdom which Plotinus had erected with such pains and diligence. The impious tolma, which Plotinus had, apparently, utterly destroyed, had eradicated not only from himself but also from the universe, showed unexpected vitality. And even the human ego, which by its forbidden and despised genesis had broken through into being, showed itself by no means so peaceable and gentle, even before the "self-evident principles." Suddenly, after steadily proclaiming the blessings and joys of the yoke of reason, Plotinus feels it to be simply intolerable. Formerly he, like Plato, had been convinced that to be a misologos was the greatest of misfortunes. He repeated the saying of the Stoics that the individual man should not and must not think of himself. We must look on the universal, not on the individual. For reason can only realize its high aims if all "individuals" fulfill the demands made on them dumbly and without contradiction, ac cadaver.
At reason's command the individual will chant joyous songs if his daughters are violated, his sons murdered, his fatherland ravaged before his eyes. Sons, daughters, fatherland - all these have a beginning and thus, as reason knows positively, have also an end: toutôi to phtheiresthai, ôi kai to paschein (III, vi, 8); hujus perire est, cujus et pati. At reason's command he must turn away from the morning and the evening star and bow his knee piously before the modest, hand-made virtues of moderation and justice. Reason, or, more accurately, the wisdom born of reason, sees in servility the essence and basis of being and can endure no "selfhood," much less any independence. Plotinus, who had inherited and imbibed the faith of the ancients that true life, true good, is only possible in the ideal atmosphere, in untroubled agreement and harmony, and who lived according to this faith, begins suddenly to feel as though he were stifling, that such life is no longer possible. One could and must submit oneself to reason so long as it limited its pretensions and did not attempt to transform itself into the archai (principles) the pêgai, rhidzômata pantôn (sources, roots of all things). Useful and necessary as a tool in man's hand, as lawgiver and mistress of the universe, it became a fearful menace to all that lives.
But it was too late. The whole of Greek philosophy before Plotinus had exerted all its force uninterruptedly for a thousand years to ensure reason its sovereign rights. Reason sits firm in its place and will not under any circumstances move from it of free will. Least of all is it inclined to abdicate its rights to the hated human "soul." How to overthrow it? How to fight with it? By convictions, by proofs? It is clear from the first that all convictions, all proofs, are on reason's side. Plotinus himself collected with the utmost care all that his predecessors had accumulated in the defense of reason, and himself contributed not a little to it. He knows well that if one begins to strive with reason one is certainly defeated, and yet he proclaims: agôn megistos kai eschatos taîs psychaîs prokeitai [A supreme and final battle awaits the soul](I, VI, 7). Not a "struggle," but a "battle." We must not seek for proofs which do not exist, but for new words of incantation, kainê epôidê (V, viii, 18), to awaken from self-evidence, to break the spell woven by reason. He himself speaks thus on the subject: "Often when I awake to myself from the slumber of the body (egeiromenos esi emauton) and issue forth from the outer world to visit myself, I behold a wonderful beauty: then I believe assuredly that I have been created for a higher lot (tês kreittonos moiras eînai), that noble life works mightily in me and I am become one with Godhead and lifted up above all that is rational" (IV, viii, 1).
If Plotinus came with these words before the forum of reason, reason would not merely condemn, but crush, him. Here is every indication of a case of lèse-majesté, and of that impious tolma to whose destruction Greek philosophy had applied its best forces. How can a mortal permit himself to dream of so lofty a destiny; to melt into God and soar aloft above that which the noûs has created? And what means this "awakening to oneself"? Does it not mean assigning value to that which had a genesis and is condemned to phthora, taking this doomed creature, against all traditions hallowed by antiquity, and placing it under the shield and protection of Something which "in its nature is something quite different from reason"? And finally the awakening, the egrêgorsis: this word contains something quite intolerable to reason, an inner contradiction. Thus the soul sleeps ever, and its whole rational activity passes as in sleep. And to participate in reality one must first awake; then it must be that something happens with man which non sequitur ex natura sua (does not follow by nature), and is therefore clearly impossible.
There can be no doubt that Plotinus' words would be declared criminal before the forum of reason, that Aristotle would have said of them ouden legousin, or something of the sort; and it is equally indubitable that Plotinus knows very well how Aristotle would have taken his words, but cares for Aristotle's judgment only so long as he sleeps. But the moment he awakes (which does not, indeed, happen often, but very rarely, he tells us) there are no forums and no verdicts which touch him. On the contrary, the highest possible delight fills him at the thought that reason has been left somewhere far below, and that neither its krinein nor its kanones are at all valid. Reason, indeed, does not yield at once, but makes desperate efforts to recover its rights, to subject to itself the new reality which revealed itself to Plotinus after his awakening. He continues to repeat that submission and humility are the lot of man, the good is only that which man has in his power. But the hymns which Plotinus used to sing to humility, now seem to him dull, intolerably lukewarm, blasphemous. He has passed through the strict school of humble obedience and carried away from it an irreconcilable hatred against everything that he was taught. The idea that man must content himself with what lies within his power, and find in this contentment the meaning of life, seems to him heavy and oppressive as a nightmare. We must awake, awake at all costs, escape from the enchanted realm of the "Good" in which the ancient wisdom thought to find the true reality. Precisely in the res fortunae, sive quae in nostra potestate non sunt, in that which is ouk eph'hêmîn, there where the morning and the evening star are, there and only there dwells to timiôtaton, the one thing that we need, which alone holds true reality.
And that is why Plotinus fell into such a rage when he learned the doctrine of the Gnostics, who, trusting reason and wisdom, had determined to leave forever the world not created by them. An almost mystic horror seizes him when he thinks that he was within a hair's breadth of treading their path. He, who is usually so quiet and peaceable, is overcome with rage and says, nay, shouts: "A man is not good simply because he despises the gods, the world, and all beauty in it" (II, ix, 16) - as though he himself had not preached with Epictetus tên tôn legomenôn agathôn toû sômatos kataphronêsin (contempt of the so-called physical goods) and that the human virtues were more lovely than the stars of heaven. Plotinus does not usually recall or contrast what he had taught with what was revealed to him later after his awakening. Had he done so he would have had to justify himself and bring proofs. But he has no proofs and does not know how to justify himself. Or rather, did not the most treasured privilege of his lofty destiny (kreittonos moiras) lie precisely in the fact that he no longer needed to justify himself before anyone?
Justifications and proofs are necessary in the realm of reason. But here in the world where Plotinus had now arrived, what "criteria of truth" could be applied? Plotinus does not raise this question. By virtue of the power which he gave himself, he forbids reason to ask at all, and answers all its questions curtly: "This does not concern you, you are not the master." The man who still has to ask before he moves, to inform himself, gather experience, look behind, is not yet awakened, has still to pass through the school of humility and of wisdom which Plotinus himself has left behind, to learn from his own experience what that reality is worth which admits only that which is eph' hêmîn, where human "good" takes the place of real life. The horror of such a desolate world leads to the "awakening" and gives courage to disregard all proofs and evidence and speak with reason as Plotinus spoke.
The parts are reversed; it is not Plotinus who goes to reason to ask what is good and what evil, what true and what false, what is and what is not, what is possible and what impossible - it is reason which looks up to Plotinus like a slave and begs of him even a little part of its earlier rights. But Plotinus is inexorable. All reason's pleas remain unanswered; en aphairesei panta peri toûto legomena (VI, viii, 11) (all that is said about it consists only in negation). Thus Plotinus fights against reason. And how can the truth of reason "compel" Plotinus when he has felt that he himself is kreittonos moiras? Whatever reason may say, it only gets one answer: No. It tries to tempt him with the old words: kalos, agathos, ousia, eînai - words which always used to make an irresistible impression. Plotinus seems not even to hear them and calls out his hyperkalos, hyperagathos (beyond all measure lovely, beyond all measure good) as though anxious to be rid of this tiresome intrusion. Reason recalls the epistêmê, which Plotinus himself so respected, but he has long since come to the point of drameîn hyper epistêmên (escaping beyond scientific knowledge) (VI, ix, 4). For him science is now reason and reason is multiplicity - logos gar hê epistêmê, polla de ho logos(V, viii, 11).
Finally reason appeals to necessity, which none can overcome. But Plotinus does not even fear necessity; even necessity "came later," and he rejects any definition which reason may propose. "It is in truth unspeakable. Whatever you may say you will yet only say one individual thing. But that which lies epekeina pantôn, epekeina toû semnotatou noû, which is separated from all things, has no other true name except that it is the Other and not of the All" (V, iii, 13). You must cast off everything (aphele panta; leave all things aside; ib. 17). To grasp true reality "reason must, as it were, retreat backwards" - deî ton noûn oîon eis toupissô anachôreîn (III, viii, 9). "For what gives God His value (to timion)? Thought, or Himself? If thought, then He has no value of Himself, or at best only a small one; if Himself, then He is already perfect before any thought and is not made perfect by thinking" (VI, vii, 37). Something which seems quite impossible is passing under our eyes. "Awakened" Plotinus overthrew reason, which he, like all his predecessors, had thought invincible. He overthrew it, he carried the battle into a new field which had not, as it were, existed for us. The reasonable proofs which were self-evident for all the world lost their power over him. He released, as it were, the world and man from a spell which supernatural forces had cast over them. "It is not there because it had to be so (ou dioti echrên), but rather because it is as it is, is it also beautiful: a conclusion not arising from the premises, for there things do not arise out of deductions and inquiries; all these things, like conclusions, proofs, and confirmation, came later" (hustera gar ta panta kai logos, kai apodeiksis kai pistis - V, Viii, 7).
So Plotinus speaks, but reason is silent; it has lost its strength and knows not what to reply. It feels that, say what it may, its words will not make the slightest impression. That which the One creates stands above reason. In fact, that which exists cannot be "deduced" from premises, but comes when and how it pleases. Plotinus, who has left reason far below him, now conceives the world in quite a different fashion. He tells us of his experiences in enigmatic, unaccustomed words. He himself did not get used at once to living and breathing in this atmosphere of the eternally ungrounded. The soul does not easily resolve to leave earth behind her. She yearns back, "she fears to stand before nothingness" (phobeîtai mê ouden echêi - VI, iX, 3). But at last "then she leaves all knowledge... and as though carried on the same wave of the spirit and lifted up by its swell, she suddenly (eksaiphnês) sees without knowing how" (VI, vii, 36). We shall not meet the last, the supremely real, the supremely necessary on those ways which we can guess by conclusions. Tote de chrê heôrakenai pisteuein, hotan hê psychê eksaiphnês phôs labêi [But then indeed we must believe that we have seen, when light suddenly dawns upon the soul" - V, iii, 17.) Reason led to the ways which could be foreseen, and led Plotinus to wisdom. He fled before wisdom, fled before reason and reached the "suddenly" which was grounded on nothing, had no roots in the earth. And this "suddenly" with everything which it brought seemed to him desirable and wondrous in comparison with wisdom and with that which wisdom had given him. What use has he for earth and firm ground who needs no support? What need has he of foresight and presuppositions who has approached God? For reason, truth was bound up for all eternity with the idea of necessity, of a certain compelling, immutable order. Reason fears the unexpected, fears freedom and the "suddenly" - and has every reason to fear. Plotinus knows this; reason dared forsake God (ho noûs... apostênai de pôs toû henos tolmêsas - VI, ix, 5), and after terrifying man with imagined horrors of chaos and with other threats (toioutôi to phtheiresthai, hôi kai to paschein) made him an apostate from that true reality created by the "suddenly" which is rich in grace and inexhaustible in creative power. Man, having trusted himself to reason, began to see his summum bonum in the fruits of reason, to esteem only that which came ex sua potestate, and to forget the gifts showered on him from on high. The awakening out of the spell came through the same "suddenly," and as unexpectedly as the best things in life always come.
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