ABSTRACT
In this chapter we turn to soul, the stage after Intellect and the last of the intelligible levels in Plotinus’ world. For a number of reasons soul is the most complicated stage of the hierarchy and hardest to come to grips with—as if the One and Intellect were not difficult enough! There are various reasons for this. One is surely that soul is the most versatile of the three hypostases in its activities: some soul never leaves the intelligible realm and eternally contemplates true beings; some governs the motions of the heavens and produces sensible qualities and quantities, and even matter; some is responsible for functions such as digestion, sense-perception and reasoning in human beings. Moreover, it is my soul that feels the attraction of the higher realms and seeks to approach them. How are we to see a single thing behind all this?
