Plotinus
“It truly appears that all things derive their being from contemplation, and are contemplations, as well the things which truly exist as the things produced from them, viz. spectacles formed from the speculations of true beings, and every where presenting themselves either to the energies of sense, of knowledge, or of opinion. Actions too are directed to knowledge as their end, and desire affects knowledge. Generations likewise, originating from speculation into form, and there ending, cease to fabricate any other contemplative specimen, and every where particular imitations of efficient causes, produce spectacles and species. Generated substances likewise, imitations as it were of beings, declare that efficient causes behold as their end, neither productions nor actions, but the effect itself, for this only purpose, that it may be a spectacle to beholders.
But even our very thoughts desire to behold, and prior to these the senses, whose end is knowledge: and again before these nature herself, possessing in herself reason and a spectacle, generates besides another reason. So that from hence it appears, that since those natures which are the first of all abide in contemplation, all the rest must necessarily desire contemplation as their end, since that which is the principle of all things is proposed as their end. Hence when animals generate, the seminal reasons within stimulate to production, the whole of which is the energy of contemplation, and a stimulus desiring to fabricate many species and various spectacles, and to fill all things with reasons, and, as it were, to be fixed in perpetual intuition; for to produce any particular nature, is to produce a certain form, and this is no other than entirely to fill all things with contemplation . . .”
— Plotinus, Ennead III, Book 8
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Albert Toft, The Spirit of Contemplation (1901)
Plotinus, Ennead III, Book 8
Leonard Rubins, Equasia I
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On Contemplation, part I
“Action . . . takes place for the sake of speculation and the consequent spectacle, on which account the end of all who act is contemplation; so that what they are not able to obtain by the right way of proceeding, they attempt to gain by a winding pursuit. The same takes place when following what they desire, and which they wish to be present; not indeed present in such a manner that they cannot recognize it, but that they may acknowledge the thing acquired and view it present in the soul, as situated there for the sake of beholding; because they ever act for the sake of good, of a good not existing externally but in themselves, thus constantly tend to the possession of that good which arises from action. But where can this good abide? Certainly in the soul; so that action again returns into contemplation: for that which is received in the soul, which is a certain reason, what is it else but silent reason? and by how much the more it becomes reason by so much the more silent and the contrary; for then it acts quietly, and being full requires nothing farther: and contemplation constituted in a habit of this kind, intrinsically reposes, from a perfect assurance of possessing. And by how much the more certain the assurance, by so much quieter the contemplation; which indeed rather reduces the soul into one, and on this account that which knows, as far as it knows . . . passes into one with the thing known.”
— Plotinus, Ennead III, Book 8
