Plotinus porphyrian III.8 · chronological 30 · chapter 2 · volkmann page 332-333

ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὔτε χεῖρες ἐνταῦθα οὔτε πόδες οὔτε τι ὄργανον ἐπακτὸν ἢ σύμφυτον, ὕλης δὲ δεῖ, ἐφ’ ἧς ποιήσει, καὶ ἣν ἐν εἴδει ποιήσει, παντί που δῆλον. δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὸ μοχλεύειν ἀφελεῖν ἐκ τῆς φυσικῆς ποιήσεως. ποῖος γὰρ ὠθισμὸς ἢ τίς μοχλεία χρώματα ποικίλα καὶ παντοδαπὰ καὶ σχήματα ποιεῖ; ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ οἱ κηροπλάσται, εἰς οὓς δὴ καὶ βλέποντες ᾠήθησαν τὴν τῆς φύσεως δημιουργίαν τοιαύτην εἶναι, χρώματα δύνανται ποιεῖν μὴ χρώματα ἀλλαχόθεν ἐπάγοντες οἷς ποιοῦσιν. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἐχρῆν συννοοῦντας ὡς καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τὰς τέχνας τὰς τοιαύτας μετιόντων δεῖ τι ἐν αὐτοῖς μένειν, καθ’ ὃ μένον διὰ χειρῶν ποιήσουσιν ἃ αὐτῶν ἔργα, ἐπὶ τὸ τοιοῦτον ἀνελθεῖν τῆς φύσεως καὶ αὐτοὺς καὶ συνεῖναι, ὡς μένειν δεῖ καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὴν δύναμιν τὴν οὐ διὰ χειρῶν ποιοῦσαν καὶ πᾶσαν μένειν. οὐ γὰρ δὴ δεῖται τῶν μὲν ὡς μενόντων, τῶν δὲ ὡς κινουμένων — ἡ γὰρ ὕλη τὸ κινούμενον, αὐτῆς δὲ οὐδὲν κινούμενον — ἢ ἐκεῖνο οὐκ ἔσται τὸ κινοῦν πρώτως, οὐδὲ ἡ φύσις τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀκίνητον τὸ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ. ὁ μὲν δὴ λόγος, φαίη ἄν τις, ἀκίνητος, αὐτὴ δὲ ἄλλη παρὰ τὸν λόγον καὶ κινουμένη. ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν πᾶσαν φήσουσι, καὶ ὁ λόγος: εἰ δέ τι αὐτῆς ἀκίνητον, καὶ τοῦτο ὁ λόγος. καὶ γὰρ εἶδος αὐτὴν δεῖ εἶναι καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ὕλης καὶ εἴδους: τί γὰρ δεῖ αὐτῇ ὕλης θερμῆς ἢ ψυχρᾶς; ἡ γὰρ ὑποκειμένη καὶ δημιουργουμένη ὕλη ἥκει τοῦτο φέρουσα, ἢ γίνεται τοιαύτη ἡ μὴ ποιότητα ἔχουσα λογωθεῖσα. οὐ γὰρ πῦρ δεῖ προσελθεῖν, ἵνα πῦρ ἡ ὕλη γένηται, ἀλλὰ λόγον: ὃ καὶ σημεῖον οὐ μικρὸν τοῦ ἐν τοῖς ζῴοις καὶ ἐν τοῖς φυτοῖς τοὺς λόγους εἶναι τοὺς ποιοῦντας καὶ τὴν φύσιν εἶναι λόγον, ὃς ποιεῖ λόγον ἄλλον γέννημα αὐτοῦ δόντα μέν τι τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ μένοντα δ’ αὐτόν. ὁ μὲν οὖν λόγος ὁ κατὰ τὴν μορφὴν τὴν ὁρωμένην ἔσχατος ἤδη καὶ νεκρὸς καὶ οὐκέτι ποιεῖν δύναται ἄλλον, ὁ δὲ ζωὴν ἔχων ὁ τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὴν μορφὴν ἀδελφὸς ὢν καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν αὐτὴν δύναμιν ἔχων ποιεῖ ἐν τῷ γεννωμένῳ.

That there are no hands here, nor feet, nor any instrument either brought in or grown with it, but that there is need of matter on which it will make and which it will make to be in form, is clear, I suppose, to everyone. And we must also take leverage away from nature's making. For what thrusting or what levering makes colours, varied and of every kind, and figures? Not even the wax-modellers — looking at whom people have in fact supposed that nature's craftsmanship is of this kind — can make colours unless they bring colours from elsewhere to the things they make. But they ought to have considered that even in those who practise such arts there must be something that remains within them, by which, remaining, they will make with their hands the things that are their works; and they ought to have gone up themselves to the like of this in nature and understood that here too the power that makes, not through hands, must remain, and remain whole. For it does not need some of itself as remaining and some as moved — matter is what is moved, and nothing of nature is moved — or else the moved part will not be the first mover, nor will nature be this, but the unmoved thing in the whole will. 'The rational form is unmoved,' someone might say, 'but nature itself is other than the rational form, and is moved.' But if they say that the whole of nature is moved, the rational form is moved too; and if something of it is unmoved, this is the rational form. For nature must be a form, and not composed of matter and form: what need has it of matter hot or cold? For the matter that underlies and is worked on comes bringing this with it, or matter that has no quality becomes such by being given rational form. For it is not fire that must come to matter for matter to become fire, but a rational form; and this is no small sign that in animals and in plants it is the rational forms that make, and that nature is a rational form, which makes another rational form, its offspring, that gives something to the substrate but itself remains. The rational form in the visible shape, then, is already the last, and dead, and can no longer make another; but the one that has life, being brother of the one that made the shape and having itself the same power, makes in what is begotten.

λόγος is 'rational form' throughout (glossary). σχήματα is 'figures', kept apart from μορφή 'shape'. The wax-modellers and the levers answer the view that nature works as a craftsman works with tools; the unmoved power that remains while it makes is the thread's central claim about nature. Volkmann prints αὐτ- where the reflexive is meant; the English follows the sense ('itself').

Greek collated line by line against the Volkmann plate (vol. 1, pp. 332–333); every departure of the First1KGreek transcription from the printed page is corrected and recorded in the apparatus.

In the crux Ennead III.8 [30], On Nature and Contemplation and the One, chapter 2