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Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 In Chronological Order,...

THE SOUL FEELS THE PASSIONS WITHOUT EXPERIENCING THEM.

Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
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19. That is why there is pleasure and pain. That is why grief is said to be a perception of dissolution, when the body is threatened with the loss of the image of the soul (of being disorganized by losing the irrational soul). That is why it is said that pleasure is a perception produced in the animal when the image of the soul reassumes its sway over the body. It is the body which undergoes passion; but it is the sense-potentiality of the soul which perceives the passion by its relation with the organs; it is she to which all the sensations ultimately report themselves. The body alone is injured and suffers; for example, when one member is cut, it is the mass of the body which is cut; the soul feels pain not merely as a mass, but as a living mass. It is likewise with a burn: the soul feels it, because the sense-potentiality as it were receives its reaction by its relations with the organs. The soul entire feels the passion produced in the body without however herself experiencing it.

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Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods, Project Gutenberg eBook #42931

THE SOUL AND BODY TOGETHER FORM A FUSION OF BOTH. UNLESS THE SOUL WERE IMPASSIBLE SHE COULD NOT LOCALIZE AND MANAGE PAIN.