Excerpts from The Six Enneads by Plotinus (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

“Since Evil is here, ‘haunting this world by necessary law,’ and it is the Soul’s design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence. But what is this escape? ‘In attaining Likeness to God,’ we read.” “So, with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the Existences There, having no need of harmony, order or distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and, none the less, it is by our possession of virtue that we become like to Them.”

“The Civic Virtues, are a principle of order and beauty in us as long as we remain passing our life here: they ennoble us by setting bound and measure to our desires and to our entire sensibility, and dispelling false judgment.” “And participation goes by nearness: the Soul nearer than the body, therefore closer akin, participates more fully and shows a Godlike presence, almost cheating us into the delusion that in the Soul we see God entire. This is the way in which men of the Civic Virtues attain Likeness.”

“As the Soul by being interfused with the body, and by coming to share the body’s states and to think the body’s thoughts, so it would be good, it would be possessed of virtue, if it threw off the body’s moods and devoted itself to its own Act - the state of Intellection and Wisdom- never allowed the passions of the body to affect it - the virtue of Sophrosyne - - knew no fear at the parting from the body- the virtue of Fortitude - and if reason and the Intellectual-Principle ruled- in which state is Righteousness.”

“The solution is in understanding the virtues and what each has to give: thus, the man will learn to work with this or that as every several need demands. And as he reaches to loftier principles and other standards, these in turn will define his conduct: for example, Restraint in its earlier form will no longer satisfy him; he will work for the final Disengagement; he will live, no longer, the human life of the good man - such as Civic Virtue commends - but, leaving this beneath him, will take up instead another life, that of the Gods.”