y through the medium of these. But everything
derived has one feature, viz., a longing for the higher; it turns itself
to this so far as its nature allows it.

The first emanation of the Original Essence is the [Greek: Nous]; it is
a complete image of the Original Essence and archetype of all existing
things; it is being and thought at the same time, World of ideas and
Idea. As image the [Greek: Nous] is equal to the Original Essence, as
derived it is completely different from it. What Plotinus understands by
[Greek: Nous] is the highest sphere which the human spirit can reach
([Greek: kosmos noetos]) and at the same time pure thought itself.

The soul which, according to Plotinus, is an immaterial substance like
the [Greek: Nous],[457] is an image and product of the immovable [Greek:
Nous]. It is related to the [Greek: Nous] as the latter is to the
Original Essence. It stands between the [Greek: Nous] and the world of
phenomena. The [Greek: Nous] penetrates and enlightens it, but it itself
already touches the world of phenomena. The [Greek: Nous] is undivided,
the soul can also preserve its unity and abide in the [Greek: Nous]; but
it has at the same time the power to unite itself with the material
world and thereby to be divided. Hence it occupies a middle position. In
virtue of its nature and destiny it belongs, as the single soul (soul of
the world), to the supersensible world; but it embraces at the same time
the many individual souls; these may allow themselves to be ruled by the
[Greek: Nous], or they may turn to the sensible and be lost in the
finite.

The soul, an active essence, begets the corporeal or the world of
phenomena. This should allow itself to be so ruled by the soul that the
manifold of which it consists may abide in fullest harmony. Plotinus is
not a dualist like the majority of Christian Gnostics. He praises the
beauty and glory of the world. When in it the idea really has dominion
over matter, the soul over the body, the world is beautiful and good. It
is the image of the upper world, though a shadowy one, and the
gradations of better or worse in it are necessary to the harmony of the
whole. But, in point of fact, the unity and harmony in the world of
phenomena disappear in strife and opposition. The result is a conflict,
a growth and decay, a seeming existence. The original cause of this lies
in the fact that a substratum, viz., matter, lies at the basis of
bodies. Matter is the foundation of