THE HIGHER REGION REACHED ONLY BY THOSE WHO ARE BORN PHILOSOPHERS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
2. Which is this higher region? What must be done to reach it? One must be naturally disposed to love, and be really a born philosopher.108 In the presence of beauty, the lover feels something similar to the pains of childbirth; but far from halting at bodily beauty, he rises to that aroused in the soul by virtue, duties, science and laws. Then he follows them up to the cause of their beauty, and in this ascending progress stops only when he has reached the Principle that occupies the first rank, that which is beautiful in itself.109 Then only does he cease being driven by this torment that we compare to the pains of childbirth.