Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4 / In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

by Plotinus

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSATION.

As to the faculty of sensation which is peculiar to the soul, it cannot be the power of perceiving the sense-objects themselves, but only their typical forms, impressed on the animal by sensation. These have already somewhat of the intelligible nature; the exterior sensation peculiar to the animal is only the image of the sensation peculiar to the soul; which, by its very essence is truer and more real, since it consists only in contemplating images while remaining impassible.[298] Ratiocination, opinion and thought, which principally constitute us,[299] deal exclusively with these images, by which the soul has the power of directing the organism.