Page "Plotinus" Paragraph 15

The first emanation is Nous ( Divine Mind, logos or order, Thought, Reason ), identified metaphorically with the Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus.

It is the first Will toward Good.

From Nous proceeds the World Soul, which Plotinus subdivides into upper and lower, identifying the lower aspect of Soul with nature.

From the world soul proceeds individual human souls, and finally, matter, at the lowest level of being and thus the least perfected level of the cosmos.

Despite this relatively pedestrian assessment of the material world, Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation since it ultimately derives from the One, through the mediums of nous and the world soul.

It is by the Good or through beauty that we recognize the One, in material things and then in the Forms.