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

by Plotinus

ENUMERATION OF THE LOWER FORMS OF CONTEMPLATION.

(1). Let us begin by explaining what could be the nature of contemplation (thought) that we attribute to the earth, to the trees, and to the plants (as we promised), and how the things produced and begotten by these beings can be reduced to the actuality of contemplation; how nature, that is usually considered to lack reason and imagination, nevertheless is quite capable of some kind of contemplation, thereby producing all its works, although speaking strictly, it is incapable thereof.