UGLINESS IS ONLY A FOREIGN ACCRETION.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
We have the right to say that the soul becomes ugly by mingling with the body, confusing herself with it, by inclining herself towards it. For a soul, ugliness consists in being impure, no longer unmingled, like gold tarnished by particles of earth. As soon as this dross is removed, and nothing but gold remains, then again it is beautiful, because separated from every foreign body, and is restored to its unique nature. Likewise the soul, released from the passions begotten by her intercourse with the body when she yields herself too much to it, delivered from exterior impressions, purified from the blemishes contracted from her alliance with the body—that is, reduced to herself, she lays aside that ugliness which is derived from a nature foreign to her.