Plotinus: The Contest Between Drugs, Magic and Reason

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer (1653)

Ὁ δὲ σπουδαῖος πῶς ὑπὸ γοητείας καὶ φαρμάκων; Ἢ τῆι μὲν ψυχῆι ἀπαθὴς εἰς γοήτευσιν, καὶ οὐκ ἂν τὸ λογικὸν αὐτοῦ πάθοι, οὐδ᾽ ἂν μεταδοξάσειε· τὸ δὲ ὅσον τοῦ παντὸς ἐν αὐτῶι ἄλογον, κατὰ τοῦτο πάθοι ἄν, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῦτο πάθοι ἄν· ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔρωτας ἐκ φαρμάκων, εἴπερ τὸ ἐρᾶν ἐπινευούσης καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς ἄλλης τῶι τῆς ἄλλης παθήματι… Τί γὰρ μαθών τις πρὸς ἄλλο ἔχει; Ἢ ἑλκόμενος οὐ μάγων τέχναις, ἀλλὰ τῆς φύσεως, τῆς ἀπάτης δούσης καὶ συναψάσης ἄλλο πρὸς ἄλλο οὐ τοῖς τόποις, ἀλλ᾽ οἷς ἔδωκε φίλτροις.

Μόνη δὲ λείπεται ἡ θεωρία ἀγοήτευτος εἶναι, ὅτι μηδεὶς πρὸς αὑτὸν γεγοήτευται· εἷς γάρ ἐστι, καὶ τὸ θεωρούμενον αὐτός ἐστι, καὶ ὁ λόγος οὐκ ἠπατημένος, ἀλλ᾽ ὃ δεῖ ποιεῖ, καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ ζωὴν καὶ τὸ ἔργον ποιεῖ. Ἐκεῖ δὲ οὐ τὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐχ ὁ λόγος τὴν ὁρμήν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀρχὴ καὶ τοῦ ἀλόγου αἱ τοῦ πάθους προτάσεις… Τοῦτο δὲ τί ἄν τις ἄλλο ἢ γοητείαν εἴποι; Μόνος οὖν ἀγοήτευτος, ὃς ἑλκόμενος τοῖς ἄλλοις αὐτοῦ μέρεσι τούτων οὐδὲν ἀγαθὸν λέγει εἶναι ὧν ἐκεῖνα λέγει, ἀλλὰ μόνον ὃ οἶδεν αὐτὸς οὐκ ἠπατημένος οὐδὲ διώκων, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχων. Οὐκ ἂν οὖν ἕλκοιτο οὐδαμοῦ.

But how can a man of reason be affected by magic and drugs? His soul will resist the enchantment, and his reason will not be affected, nor will it alter his opinions; but it will affect whatever elements of the irrational All that dwell within him; still any love he acquires will lack passion, for true love arises only when one soul forms the bonds of affection for another… He is drawn not by magic but by the arts of nature, which bring illusion and cause him to see the ties that connect one thing to another—not in the sense of spatial reality, but through the magic which they impart.

Contemplation alone remains incapable of enchantment because no one who is self-actuated may be put under a spell; for he is One, and that which he contemplates is himself, and his reason is not deluded, but he makes what he ought and makes his own life and work. Still in the practical life there is no self-possession, and reason does not produce impulse, so that the irrational grows out of the premises derived from affection… This man alone is free from enchantment who when his other parts attempt to lead him says “none of these things are good which they declare to be so,” and instead is guided only by what he knows himself, not deluded or pursuing, but possessing it. In this way he avoids distraction.

–Plotinus (Πλωτῖνος), Ennead (Ἐννεάδες) bk iv, ch iv, secs 43-44 (ca. 260 CE) (transl. following A.H. Armstrong and E. Cassirer) in the Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Plotinus, vol. iv, pp. 268-75.