Plotinus: Enneads - AwardSpace

But they have no need of Him?
The Universe has need of Him, and He knows its ordering and
its indwellers and how far they belong to it and how far to the
Supreme, and which of the men upon it are friends of God,
mildly acquiescing with the Kosmic dispensation when in the
total course of things some pain must be brought to them­ for
we are to look not to the single will of any man but to the
universe entire, regarding every one according to worth but not
stopping for such things where all that may is hastening
onward.
Not one only kind of being is bent upon this quest, which
brings bliss to whatsoever achieves, and earns for the others a
future destiny in accord with their power. No man, therefore,
may flatter himself that he alone is competent; a pretension is
not a possession; many boast though fully conscious of their
lack and many imagine themselves to possess what was never
theirs and even to be alone in possessing what they alone of
men never had.
10. Under detailed investigation, many other tenets of this
school­ indeed we might say all­ could be corrected with an
abundance of proof. But I am withheld by regard for some of
our own friends who fell in with this doctrine before joining
our circle and, strangely, still cling to it.
The school, no doubt, is free­spoken enough­ whether in the
set purpose of giving its opinions a plausible colour of verity or
in honest belief­ but we are addressing here our own
acquaintances, not those people with whom we could make no
way. We have spoken in the hope of preventing our friends
from being perturbed by a party which brings, not proof­ how
could it?­ but arbitrary, tyrannical assertion; another style of
address would be applicable to such as have the audacity to
flout the noble and true doctrines of the august teachers of
antiquity.
That method we will not apply; anyone that has fully grasped
the preceding discussion will know how to meet every point in
the system.
Only one other tenet of theirs will be mentioned before passing
the matter; it is one which surpasses all the rest in sheer folly,
if that is the word.
They first maintain that the Soul and a certain "Wisdom"
[Sophia] declined and entered this lower sphere though they
leave us in doubt of whether the movement originated in Soul
or in this Sophia of theirs, or whether the two are the same to