ment of organizational transition. Since there is more analytical work to be
done in reorganizing intellectual alliances, the creative advance is the more
impressive. Plotinus’ vision of the material universe floating in soul like a net
in the ocean could be equally an expression of his predecessors’ ideas in relation
to his own harmonious system: “The cosmos is like a net thrown into the
waters, immersed in life, unable to make that in which it is its own. Already
the sea is spread out, and the net spreads with it as far as it can, for no one
of its parts can be anywhere else than where it is. But because it has no size
the Soul’s nature is sufficiently ample to contain the whole cosmic body in one
and the same grasp” (Plotinus, Enneads 4.3.27.9).
Can we conceive of all intellectual history as the working out of these two
forms of creativity, with their varying degrees of strength and their mixed
forms? In China, one can already feel the affinity of figures such as Mo Ti,
Chuang Tzu, and the Ch’an Buddhists with the fractionalizing style, and the
grand syntheses of Tung Chung-shu or Chu Hsi with organizational alignment.
Let us see.
Partitioning Attention Space: Ancient Greece^ •^133