Select works of Plotinus ... and extracts from the treatise of Synesius on providence / Translated from the Greek. With an introduction containing the substance of Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. By Thomas Taylor.

  • Plotinus
Date:
1817
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Select works of Plotinus ... and extracts from the treatise of Synesius on providence / Translated from the Greek. With an introduction containing the substance of Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. By Thomas Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ON THE VIRTUES/ X. Since evils are here, and revolve from necessity about this [terrestrial] place, but the soul wishes to flv from evils, it is requisite to fly from hence. What therefore is the flight? To become similar, sa)s Plato, to God. But this will be effected, if we become just and holy, in conjunc¬ tion with [intellectual] prudence, and in short if we are [truly] virtuous. If therefore we are assi¬ milated through virtue, is it to one who possesses virtue? But to whom are we assimilated?1 To divinity. Are we then assimilated to that nature which appears to possess the virtues in a more * eminent degree, and also to the soul of the world, and to the intellect which is the leader in it, in which there is an admirable wisdom ? For it is reasonable to suppose that while we are here, we are assimilated to this intellect. Or is it not in 1 See the additional notes at the end of this Volume, for a copious account of the political, cathartic and theoretic virtues, the subject of the present treatise of Plotinus. Plot, A
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