Outside of academic circles, Plotinus is perhaps not the best known of the ancient philosopher, but perhaps one of the most important as Christian doctrine draws a considerable amount from his philosophy. I have recently started to read his works known as The Ennead and came across this passage that I found particularly moving:
"For who that truly perceives the harmony of the Intellectual Realm could fail, if he has any bent towards music, to answer to the harmony in sensible sounds? What geometrician or arithmetician
could fail to take pleasure in the symmetries, correspondences and principles of order observed in visible things? Consider, even, the case of pictures: those seeing by the bodily sense the productions of the art of painting do not see the one thing in the one only way; they are deeply stirred by recognising in the objects depicted to the eyes the presentation of what lies in the idea, and so are called to recollection of the truth- the very experience out of which Love rises. Now, if the sight of Beauty excellently reproduced upon a face hurries the mind to that other Sphere, surely no one seeing the loveliness lavish in the world of sense- this vast orderliness, the Form which the stars even in their remoteness display- no one could be so dull-witted, so immoveable, as not to be carried by all this to recollection, and gripped by reverent awe in the thought of all this, so great, sprung from that greatness. Not to answer thus could only be to have neither fathomed this world nor had any vision of that other."
I have never been religious or certainly not a creationist, though I am agnostic towards the possibility of there being some power/force or even a grand design way beyond our comprehension at play in the universe. Lately, usually but not exclusively whilst out walking in the local countryside, I have been getting moments of what I can only describe as intense elation, almost revelatory when contemplating the beauty surrounding me and have even thanked God (possible from having no one else to thank) for giving me the opportunity to not only experience this life, but to also have a comprehension of this life with its beauty and magnificence. I have indeed been "gripped by reverent awe in the thought of all this".
Anyway, there's no particular reason for this post. I just thought that some might like to read something more positive than the usual content of social media. Please feel free to post other inspirational passages or personal stories.
