ABSTRACT
In previous chapters we have seen that Plotinus’ universe is alive: surely Intellect and the pure souls are alive and so is the body of the universe and the particular bodies of animals and human beings. Even the One may possess life of some kind. It follows from this that an account of the lifeless is in a way an account of a mere abstraction: except perhaps individual stones, dust and suchlike on the surface of the earth, there is nothing that is void of soul and, hence, life (see Wilberding 2006: 46). Still, the lifeless can be studied as an abstraction. This lifeless aspect of the universe contains matter, bodies and corporeal qualities. As we shall see, these come in a certain structural order of plurality and unity: matter has the least unity, then bare bodies, identified with extended bulk, and then corporeal forms (forms in matter) of which the qualities of bodies are a prime example.
