A Little More Whiteness, Please

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Yes, you want The Second Ennead, but I am more interested in
the dialectal method, so I turned to the Sixth. 
                                                           

On the other hand, one and the same thing may be sometimes a
differentiation of
    Reality and sometimes not- a differentiation when it is
a constitutive element, and no
    differentiation in some other thing, where it is not a
constitutive element but an
    accidental. The distinction may be seen in the
[constitutive] whiteness of a swan or of
    ceruse and the whiteness which in a man is an
accidental. 

And our answer is "Because the flux is not outgoing": where
there is motion within but
    not outwards and the total remains unchanged, there is
neither growth nor decline, and
    thus the Kosmos never ages. 

    We have a parallel in our earth, constant from eternity
to pattern and to mass; the air,
    too, never fails; and there is always water: all the
changes of these elements leave
    unchanged the Principle of the total living thing, our
world. In our own constitution,
    again, there is a ceaseless shifting of particles- and
that with outgoing loss- and yet the
    individual persists for a long time: where there is no
question of an outside region, the
    body-principle cannot clash with soul as against the
identity and endless duration of
    the living thing. 

In sum, then, no outside body is necessary to the heavens to
ensure their permanence-
    or to produce their circular movement, for it has never
been shown that their natural
    path would be the straight line; on the contrary the
heavens, by their nature, will either
    be motionless or move by circle; all other movement
indicates outside compulsion. We
    cannot think, therefore, that the heavenly bodies stand
in need of replenishment; we
    must not argue from earthly frames to those of the
celestial system whose sustaining
    soul is not the same, whose space is not the same, whose
conditions are not those
    which make restoration necessary in this realm of
composite bodies always in flux: we
    must recognise that the changes that take place in
bodies here represent a
    slipping-away from the being [a phenomenon not incident
to the celestial sphere] and
    take place at the dictate of a Principle not dwelling in
the higher regions, one not
    powerful enough to ensure the permanence of the
existences in which it is exhibited,
    one which in its coming into being and in its generative
act is but an imitation of an
    antecedent Kind, and, as we have shown, cannot at every
point possess the
    unchangeable identity of the Intellectual Realm.