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

by Plotinus

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF VIRTUE OR VICE OF APPETITE.

Further, the soul's appetite is intemperate when it alone is active; for then, in the absence of the principles that ought to command or direct her, it alone does everything. Besides, the rational part, whose function it is to see (by considering the notions it receives from intelligence), is occupied with something else, for it does not do everything simultaneously, being busy with some other action; it considers other than corporeal things, so far as it can.[37] Perhaps also the virtue or vice of the appetite depend considerably on the good or evil condition of the organs; so that, in either case, nothing is added to the soul.