till
his death in 270. He left extensive writings which have been
preserved.

Plato had shown that the idea of the One, exclusive of all
multiplicity, was an impossible abstraction. Even to say "the One is,"
involves the duality of the One. The Absolute Being can be no abstract
unity, but only a unity in multiplicity. Plotinus begins by ignoring
this {373} supremely important philosophical principle. He falls back
upon the lower level of oriental monism. God, he thinks, is absolutely
One. He is the unity which lies beyond all multiplicity. There is in
him no plurality, no movement, no distinction. Thought involves the
distinction between object and subject; therefore the One is above and
beyond thought. Nor is the One describable in terms of volition or
activity. For volition involves the distinction between the willer and
the willed, activity between the actor and that upon which he acts.
God, therefore, is neither thought, nor volition, nor activity. He is
beyond all thought and all being. As absolutely infinite, He is also
absolutely indeterminate. All predicates limit their subject, and
hence nothing can be predicated of the One. He is unthinkable, for all
thought limits and confines that which is thought. He is the ineffable
and inconceivable. The sole predicates which Plotinus applies to Him
are the One and the Good. He sees, however, that these predicates, as
much as any others, limit the infinite. He regards them, therefore,
not as literally expressing the nature of the infinite, but as
figuratively shadowing it forth. They are applied by analogy only. We
can, in truth, know nothing of the One, except that it _is_.

Now it is impossible to derive the world from a first principle of
this kind. As being utterly exalted above the world, God cannot enter
into the world. As absolutely infinite, He can never limit Himself to
become finite, and so give rise to the world of objects. As absolutely
One, the many can never issue out of Him. The One cannot create the
world, for creation is an activity, and the One is immutable and
excludes all {374} activity. As the infinite first principle of all
things, the One must be regarded as in some sense the source of all
being. And yet how it can give rise to being is inconceivable, since
any such act destroys its unity and infinity. We saw once for all, in
the case of the Eleatics, that it is fatal to define the Absolute as
unity exclusive of all multiplicity, as immutable esse