THE SIX ENNEADS [349]
the very act of combining, to which of our specified motions shall we refer this type? There will certainly be locomotion at first, but it will be succeeded by something different; just as in growth locomotion is found at the outset, though later it is supplanted by quantitative motion. The present case is similar: locomotion leads the way, but integration or disintegration does not inevitably follow; integration takes place only when the impinging elements become intertwined, disintegration only when they are rent asunder by the contact. On the other hand, it often happens that locomotion follows disintegration, or else occurs simultaneously, though the experience of the disintegrated is not conceived in terms of locomotion: so too in integration a distinct experience, a distinct unification, accompanies the locomotion and remains separate from it. Are we then to posit a new species for these two motions, adding to them, perhaps, alteration? A thing is altered by becoming dense- in other words, by integration; it is altered again by being rarefied- that is, by disintegration. When wine and water are mixed, something is produced different from either of the pre-existing elements: thus, integration takes place, resulting in alteration. But perhaps we should recall a previous distinction, and while holding that integrations and disintegrations precede alterations, should maintain that alterations are nonetheless distinct from either; that, further, not every alteration is of this type [presupposing, that is to say, integration or disintegration], and, in particular, rarefication and condensation are not identical with disintegration and integration, nor in any sense derived from them: to suppose that they were would involve the admission of a vacuum. Again, can we use integration and disintegration to explain blackness and whiteness? But to doubt the independent existence of these qualities means that, beginning with colours, we may end by annihilating almost all qualities, or rather all without exception; for if we identify every alteration, or qualitative change, with integration and disintegration, we allow nothing whatever to come into existence; the same elements persist, nearer or farther apart. Finally, how is it possible to class learning and being taught as integrations? 26. We may now take the various specific types of Motion, such as locomotion, and once again enquire for each one whether it is not to be divided on the basis of direction, up, down, straight, circular- a question already raised; whether the organic motion should be distinguished from the inorganic- they are clearly not alike; whether, again, organic motions should be subdivided into walking, swimming and flight. Perhaps we should also distinguish, in each species, natural from unnatural motions: this distinction would however imply that motions have differences which are not external. It may indeed be the case that motions create these differences and cannot exist without them; but Nature may be supposed to be the ultimate source of motions and differences alike. Motions may also be classed as natural, artificial and purposive: "natural" embracing growth and decay; "artificial" architecture and shipbuilding; "purposive" enquiry, learning, government, and, in general, all speech and action. Again, with regard to growth, alteration and birth, the division may proceed from the natural and unnatural, or, speaking generally, from the characters of the moved objects. 27. What view are we to take of that which is opposed to Motion, whether it be Stability or Rest? Are we to consider it as a distinct genus, or to refer it to one of the genera already established? We should, no doubt, be well advised to assign Stability to the Intellectual, and to look in the lower sphere for Rest alone. First, then, we have to discover the precise nature of this Rest. If it presents itself as identical with Stability, we have no right to expect to find it in the sphere where nothing is stable and the apparently stable has merely