Enneads VI.4: The One Identical Essence is Everywhere Entirely Present
How Various Things Can Participate in the Same Principle
12. When a sound resounds in the air, and when it constitutes a word, the ear that is present hears and perceives this sound and this word, especially if the place be quiet. If another ear should come to be in this place, the sound and the word approach it likewise, or rather, this ear will approach the word. Suppose also that several eyes consider the same object; all are filled with its sight, although this object occupy a determinate place. Thus the same object will impress different organs with different perceptions, because the one is an eye, and the other is an ear. Likewise, all the things that can participate in the soul do participate therein, but each receives a different power from one and the same principle. The sound is everywhere present in the air; it is not a divided unity, but a unity present everywhere, entirely. Likewise, if the air receive the form of the visible object, it possesses it without division, for, in whatever place the eye should place itself, it perceives the form of the visible object; at least, according to our opinion, for not all philosophers agree herewith. We give these examples to explain how several things may participate in one and the same principle. Besides, the example of the sound suffices to demonstrate what we here wish to explain; namely, that the entire form is present in the entire air; for all men would not hear the same thing, if the word uttered by the sound were everywhere entire, and if each ear did not likewise hear it entire. Now if in this case the entire word spread in the entire air, without some definite part of the word being united to a certain part of the air, and some other part of the word being united with another part of the air, how could we refuse to admit that a single Soul penetrates everywhere without dividing herself with the things, that she is entirely present everywhere where she is, that she is everywhere in the world without dividing into parts that correspond to those of the world? When she has united with the bodies, in whatever kind of union, she bears an analogy to the word which has been pronounced in the air, while before uniting with the bodies, she resembles him who pronounces, or is about to pronounce some word. Nevertheless, even when she has united to the bodies, she does not really in certain respects cease resembling him who pronounces a word, and who, while pronouncing it, possesses it, and gives it at the same time.
Doubtless the word does not have a nature identical with those things that we proposed to illustrate by this example; nevertheless, there is much analogy between them.
THE BODY'S RELATION TO THE SOUL IS A PASSAGE INTO THE WORLD OF LIFE.
(Let us study) the relation of the (world) Soul to bodies. As this relation is of a different kind, it must be understood that the Soul is not partly in herself and partly in the bodies. Simultaneously she dwells entirely within herself, and also projects her image into the multiplicity of the bodies (which reflect her, like mirrors). Suppose that some definite body approach the Soul to receive life from her; it obtains life silently, and thus possesses what already was in other bodies. Indeed, conditions had not been arranged so that a part of the Soul, located in a certain place, should await a body, so as to enter into it. But this part of the Soul which enters into a body, so to speak, existed already in the universe, that is to say, in herself, and she continued to exist in herself although she seemed to have descended here below. How indeed should the Soul descend here below? Therefore, if she did not descend here below, if she only manifested her actual presence, without awaiting the body which was to participate in her, evidently the Soul dwells in herself simultaneously with becoming present to this body. Now, if the Soul dwell in herself at the same time as she becomes present to this body (for it is not the Soul that came into this body), it is the body which entered into her; it is the body which, being till then outside of veritable Essence, entered into it, and passed into the world of life. Now the world of life was all in itself, without extension, and, therefore, without division. The body has, therefore, not entered into it as in something that possesses extension. It commenced by participating, not in one of the parts of the world of life, but in this whole world, entirely. If an additional body should also enter it, it will participate in it in the same way (entirely). Consequently, if we said that the world of life is entire in these bodies, it is similarly entire in each of them. It is, therefore everywhere the same, and numerically one, without dividing, but always present entire.
EXTENSION IS MERELY A SIGN OF PARTICIPATION IN THE WORLD OF LIFE.
13. Whence originates extension in our universe, and in the animals? The world of life contains no extension. Sensation, whose testimony hinders us from believing what we are told in this respect, reveals to us here and there the world of life. But reason tells us that, if we see it thus, it is not that it is really extended here and there, but that all that possesses extension has participated in the world of life, which, however, has no extension.