each ([Greek: to bathos hekastou he
hule]); it is the obscure, the indefinite, that which is without
qualities, the [Greek: me on]. As devoid of form and idea it is the
evil, as capable of form the intermediate.

The human souls that are sunk in the material have been ensnared by the
sensuous, and have allowed themselves to be ruled by desire. They now
seek to detach themselves entirely from true being, and striving after
independence fall into an unreal existence. Conversion therefore is
needed, and this is possible, for freedom is not lost.

Now here begins the practical philosophy. The soul must rise again to
the highest on the same path by which it descended: it must first of all
return to itself. This takes place through virtue which aspires to
assimilation with God and leads to Him. In the ethics of Plotinus all
earlier philosophic systems of virtue are united and arranged in
graduated order. Civic virtues stand lowest, then follow the purifying,
and finally the deifying virtues. Civic virtues only adorn the life, but
do not elevate the soul as the purifying virtues do; they free the soul
from the sensuous and lead it back to itself and thereby to the [Greek:
Nous]. Man becomes again a spiritual and permanent being, and frees
himself from every sin, through asceticism. But he is to reach still
higher; he is not only to be without sin, but he is to be "God." That
takes place through the contemplation of the Original Essence, the One,
that is through ecstatic elevation to Him. This is not mediated by
thought, for thought reaches only to the [Greek: Nous], and is itself
only a movement. Thought is only a preliminary stage towards union with
God. The soul can only see and touch the Original Essence in a condition
of complete passivity and rest. Hence, in order to attain to this
highest, the soul must subject itself to a spiritual "Exercise." It must
begin with the contemplation of material things, their diversity and
harmony, then retire into itself and sink itself in its own essence, and
thence mount up to the [Greek: Nous], to the world of ideas; but, as it
still does not find the One and Highest Essence there, as the call
always comes to it from there: "We have not made ourselves" (Augustine
in the sublime description of Christian, that is, Neoplatonic
exercises), it must, as it were, lose sight of itself in a state of
intense concentration, in mute contemplation and complete forgetfulness
of all things. It can th