Enneads III.6: Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Entities (Soul and and Matter)
Third Ennead, Book Sixth
Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Entities (Soul and Matter).
A. Of the Soul
Questions About the Passibility of Judgment and the Soul
1. Sensations are not affections,[25] but actualizations, and judgments, relative to passions. The affections occur in what is other (than the soul); that is, in the organized body, and the judgment in the soul. For if the judgment were an affection, it would itself presuppose another judgment, and so on to infinity.[26] Though accepting this statement, we must, nevertheless, examine whether the judgment itself, as such, in nowise participates in the nature of its object; for if it receive the impression thereof,[27] it is passive. Besides, the "images derived from the senses"--to use the popular language--are formed in a manner entirely different from what is generally believed. They are in the same case as the intellectual conceptions, which are actualizations, and through which, without being affected, we know objects. In general, neither our reason nor our will permit us, in any way, to attribute to the soul modifications and changes such as the heating or cooling of bodies. Further, we have to consider whether that part of the soul, that is called the passive (or affective, or irrational), must also be considered as unalterable, or as being affectible. But we will take up this question later; we must begin by solving our earlier problems.
HOW CAN THE SOUL REMAIN IMPASSIBLE, THOUGH GIVEN UP TO EMOTION?
How could that part of the soul that is superior to sensation and passion remain unalterable, while admitting vice, false opinions, and ignorance (or folly); when it has desires or aversions; when it yields itself to joy or pain, to hate, jealousy, and appetite; when, in one word, it never remains calm, but when all the things that happen to it agitate it, and produce changes within it?
ON THE STOIC HYPOTHESIS OF CORPOREITY THE SOUL CANNOT REMAIN IMPASSIBLE; AS IT IS IMPASSIBLE ALL TERMS TO THE CONTRARY ARE ONLY FIGURATIVE.
If, (on the Stoic hypothesis) the soul were extended, and corporeal, it would be difficult, or rather impossible for her to remain impassible and unalterable when the above-mentioned occurrences take place within her. If, on the contrary, she be a "being" that is unextended, and incorruptible, we must take care not to attribute to her affections that might imply that she is perishable. If, on the contrary, her "being" be a number[28] or a reason,[29] as we usually say, how could an affection occur within a number or a reason? We must therefore attribute to the soul only irrational reasons, passions without passivity; that is, we must consider these terms as no more than metaphors drawn from the nature of bodies, taking them in an opposite sense, seeing in them no more than mere analogies, so that we may say that the soul experiences them without experiencing them, and that she is passive without really being such (as are the bodies). Let us examine how all this occurs.