ON THE IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
It will suffice to oppose the arguments of Ammonius, teacher of Plotinos, and those of Numenius the Pythagorean, to that of all those who claim that the soul is material. These are the reasons: "Bodies, containing nothing unchangeable, are naturally subject to change, to dissolution, and to infinite divisions. They inevitably need some principle that may contain them, that may bind and strengthen their parts; this is the unifying principle that we call soul. But if the soul also be material, however subtle be the matter of which she may be composed, what could contain the soul herself, since we have just seen that all matter needs some principle to contain it? The same process will go on continuously to infinity until we arrive at an immaterial substance."