5. UNCERTAIN INDEBTEDNESS OF PLOTINOS.
As Plotinos does not give exact quotations and references, it is difficult always to give their undoubted source. As probably Platonic we may mention the passage about the universal Soul taking care of all that is inanimate;[609] and "When one has arrived at individuals, they must be abandoned to infinity."[610] Also other quotations.[611] The line "It might be said that virtues are actualizations,"[612] might be Aristotelian. We also find:[613] "Thus, according to the ancient maxim, 'Courage, temperance, all the virtues, even prudence, are but purifications.'" "That is the reason that it is right to say that the 'soul's welfare and beauty lie in assimilating herself to the divinity.'" This sounds Platonic, but might be Numenian.
In this connection it might not be uninteresting to note passages in Numenius which are attributed to Plato, but which are not to be identified: "O Men, the Mind which you dimly perceive is not the First Mind; but before this Mind is another one, which is older and diviner." "That the Good is One."[614]
We turn now to thoughts found identically in Plotinos and Numenius, although no textual identity is to be noted. We may group these according to the subject, the universe, and the soul.