Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

284 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMend of its nature. Accordingly this elevation of themind above the world of sense forms the third portionof the Plotinic system.As to the end at which man should aim, his doctrineis Stoic. Perfect life must be life in accordancewith nature, nature however so understood as thatwhich is highest in man, and most proper to him, andthis is thought, the activity of the thinking mind.All the rest is but accessory. External circumstancesare merely the shell, the mind the kernel. Happinessconsists in the bearing of the man towards this reinward self.The doctrine respecting moral good and evil whichfollows upon this is of the highest moment in thesystem.itAs 1 it is not an inward perversion of the spiritualbeing, but only the connection of the soul with thebody from which the imperfection of its present lifesprings, no more than the dissolution of this connectionis required to get rid of this imperfection. So far asit is affected by the soul's own inclination to sensuous-ness, the mere cessation of this external bias, not achange of its inward character, will be requiredtake back the soul to its purity and perfectness. Thesoul has no more to do than to turn itself away fromwhat is foreign to it, and to confine itself to its ownoriginal activity. A change in this activity, as such,is neither possible nor necessary, since the properbeing of the soul, its real self, has remained withoutult and without error. The decision in man's moralcondition consists in the turning away from sensuous-ness. The turning towards that which is above thesenses follows immediately, as a natural consequence,1 Zeller, v. 537.