Enneads I 6: Beauty

[sdi]

I 6: Beauty

We call something "Beautiful" when it is unified with its Ideal Form. The Ideal Form organizes the many constituent parts of that thing into a Unity, bringing order and symmetry and communicating a Divine Thought into the material world. Ugliness is the opposite, when something is so covered in the material that the Divine Thought can't shine through, like a comely youth covered in mud.

But above the Beauty of the material world, there is a higher and more graceful Beauty of the immaterial, visible only to the sense-organs of the soul. And above that Beauty is still a higher, and on and on, all the way to the most Ideal of all Forms, Beauty itself, shining above all things.

In the same way that a sculptor looks at a chunk of marble, sees an angel within it, and chisels away every bit that isn't an angel, one should look at themselves and chisel away all parts that don't reflect the soul within. By so doing, you unify yourself with your own Ideal Form, become more Beautiful, and thereby able to perceive those higher Beauties.

I barely hazard an attempt at summarizing this tractate, as it is short and well-worth reading in it's original, especially the last few sections. Plotinus thrills in that way only one who is deeply in love can, and the feeling he evokes of that higher Beauty is that of the bounty placed upon fugitive Psyche: SEVEN SWEET KISSES FROM VENUS HERSELF, AND ONE EXQUISITELY DELICIOUS TOUCH OF HER CHARMING TONGUE.

Comments

[sdi]

Ha, and here I am, just starting Enneads I 8, and Plotinus himself says, "By what faculty in us could we possibly know Evil? All knowing comes by likeness."