treatises of the world, and it sums up in matchless words the whole
mystic position and experience. There are two statements in it which
contain the centre of the writer's thought. "God is not external to any
one, but is present in all things, though they are ignorant that he is
so." "God is not in a certain place, but wherever anything is able to
come into contact with him there he is present" (_Enn._ vi. 9, §§ 4, 7).
It is because of our ignorance of the indwelling of God that our life is
discordant, for it is clashing with its own inmost principle. We do not
know ourselves. If we did, we would know that the way home to God lies
within ourselves. "A soul that knows itself must know that the proper
direction of its energy is not outwards in a straight line, but round a
centre which is within it" (_Enn._ vi. 9, § 8).

The whole Universe is one vast Organism (_Enn._ ix. 4, §§ 32, 45), and
the Heart of God, the source of all life, is at the centre, in which all
finite things have their being, and to which they must flow back; for
there is in this Organism, so Plotinus conceives, a double circulatory
movement, an eternal out-breathing and in-breathing, the way down and
the way up. The way down is the out-going of the undivided "One" towards
manifestation. From Him there flows out a succession of emanations. The
first of these is the "Nous" or Over-Mind of the Universe, God as
thought. The "Mind" in turn throws out an image, the third Principle in
this Trinity, the Soul of all things. This, like the "Nous," is
immaterial, but it can act on matter. It is the link between man and
God, for it has a lower and a higher side. The lower side _desires_ a
body and so creates it, but it is not wholly incarnate in it, for, as
Plotinus says, "the soul always leaves something of itself above."

From this World Soul proceed the individual souls of men, and they
partake of its nature. Its nature is triple, the animal or sensual soul,