part points out the way by which the soul can
again be raised to the Eternal and the Highest. As the soul with its
longings aspires beyond all sensible things and even beyond the world of
ideas, the Highest must be something above reason. The system therefore
has three parts. I. The Original Essence. II. The world of ideas and the
soul. III. The world of phenomena. We may also, in conformity with the
thought of Plotinus, divide the system thus: A. The supersensible world
(1. The Original Essence; 2. the world of ideas; 3. the soul). B. The
world of phenomena. The Original Essence is the One in contrast to the
many; it is the Infinite and Unlimited in contrast to the finite; it is
the source of all being, therefore the absolute causality and the only
truly existing; but it is also the Good, in so far as everything finite
is to find its aim in it and to flow back to it. Yet moral attributes
cannot be ascribed to this Original Essence, for these would limit it.
It has no attributes at all; it is a being without magnitude, without
life, without thought; nay, one should not, properly speaking, even call
it an existence; it is something above existence, above goodness, and at
the same time the operative force without any substratum. As operative
force the Original Essence is continually begetting something else,
without itself being changed or moved or diminished. This creation is
not a physical process, but an emanation of force; and because that
which is produced has any existence only in so far as the originally
Existent works in it, it may be said that Neoplatonism is dynamical
Pantheism. Everything that has being is directly or indirectly a
production of the "One." In this "One" everything so far as it has
being, is Divine, and God is all in all. But that which is derived is
not like the Original Essence itself. On the contrary, the law of
decreasing perfection prevails in the derived. The latter is indeed an
image and reflection of the Original Essence, but the wider the circle
of creations extends the less their share in the Original Essence. Hence
the totality of being forms a gradation of concentric circles which
finally lose themselves almost completely in non-being, in so far as in
the last circle the force of the Original Essence is a vanishing one.
Each lower stage of being is connected with the Original Essence only by
means of the higher stages; that which is inferior receives a share in
the Original Essence onl