Enneads IV 7: The Immortality of the Soul

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IV 7: The Immortality of the Soul

Suppose a human to be entirely immortal. But, it is self-evident that bodies are mortal. Since a human is at least partly composed of body, a human must not be entirely immortal.

Suppose a human to be entirely mortal. This presupposes that the life-giving faculty is corporeal, that matter is all there is. But a great many arguments refute this. How can nonliving parts assemble into a living whole? How can entropy produce order? How can passivity produce activity? How can that which is self-interested act ascetically or selflessly? How can anything eternal, like geometrical objects, exist in a sea of ceaseless change?

If neither of these cases are possible, then the only possibility remaining is that a human consists of both mortal and immortal parts.

Sightseeing time: §15 contains Plotinus at his best, where he sets aside his proof that the soul is eternal and instead describes what the eternal soul is like, while §19 indicates that Plotinus considers the souls of plants and animals to be no less divine than our own.