Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 / In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

by Plotinus

CONCEPTIVE THOUGHT DEMANDS THE INTERMEDIARY PROCESS OF SENSATION.

23. Conception of sense-objects occurs when the soul or the living being experiences perceptions by grasping the bodies' inherent qualities, and by representing their forms to itself. The soul must therefore perceive sense-objects either with or without the body. How could the soul do so alone? Pure and isolated, she can conceive only what she has within herself; she can only think. But for conception of objects other than herself, she must previously have grasped them, either by becoming assimilated to them, or by finding herself united to something which may have become similar to them.