The more strictly ethical views of PLOTINUS, the chief representative of the school, are found mainly in the first of the six Enneads into which Porphyry collected his master’s essays.  But as they presuppose the cosmological and psychological doctrines, their place in the works, as now arranged, is to be regarded as arbitrary.  The soul having fallen from its original condition, and, in consequence and as a penalty, having become united with a material body, the one true aim recognized for human action is, to rise above the debasing connection with matter, and again to lead the old spiritual life.  For those that have sunk so far as to be content with the world of sense, wisdom consists in pursuing pleasure as good, and shunning pain as evil:  but the others can partake of a better life, in different degrees.  The first step in reformation is to practise virtue in the affairs of life, which means to subject Sense and the lower desires to Reason.  This is done in the fourfold form of the common cardinal virtues, called political by Plotinus, to mark the sphere of action where they can be exerted, and is the virtue of a class of men capable of a certain elevation, though ignorant of all the rest that lies above them.  A second step is made through the means of the [Greek:  katharseis] or purifying virtues; where it is sought to root out, instead of merely moderating, the sensual affections.  If the soul is thus altogether freed from the dominion of sense, it becomes at once able to follow its natural bent towards good, and enters into a permanent state of calm.  This is virtue in its true meaning—­becoming like to the Deity, all that went before being merely a preparation.  The pure and perfect life of the soul may still be described as a field whereon the four virtues are exercised, but they now assume a far higher meaning than as political virtues, having relation solely to the contemplative life of the Nous.

Happiness is unknown to Plotinus as distinct from perfection, and perfection in the sense of having subdued all material cravings (except as regards the bare necessities of life), and entered upon the undisturbed life of contemplation.  If this recalls, at least in name, the Aristotelian ideal, there are points added that appear to be echoes of Stoicism.  Rapt in the contemplation of eternal verities, the purified soul is indifferent to external circumstances:  pain and suffering are unheeded, and the just man can feel happy even in the bull of Phalaris.  But in one important respect the Neo-Platonic teaching is at variance with Stoical doctrine.  Though its first and last precept is to rid the soul from the bondage of matter, it warns against the attempt to sever body and soul by suicide.  By no forcible separation, which would be followed by a new junction, but only by prolonged internal effort is the soul so set free from the world of sense, as to be able to have a vision of its ancient home while still in the body, and to return to it at death.  Small, therefore, as is the consideration bestowed by Neo-Platonism on the affairs of practical life, it has no disposition to shirk the burden of them.