Human beings, too, when they are weak in contemplation, produce action as a shadow of contemplation and reason. For their faculty of contemplation is not adequate for them due to weakness of soul, and being unable to grasp adequately the object of the ir vision and because of this not being filled [by it], yet still desirous of seeing it, they are carried towards action so that they can see [with their eyes] what they cannot see with their intellect....
Indeed, everywhere we will find that production and action are a weakened form of contemplation or a consequence of contemplation....
[Plotinus, The Enneads, Gerson, ed., Boys-Stones et al., trs. Cambridge University Press (New York: 2018) p. 359. This is from 3.8.4.]
