 Cudworth developed his theory by reflecting on Plotinus’s Enneads, where Plotinus makes use of the Greek term synaisthesis (literally: “sensed with”) to distinguish lower natures from higher. Cudworth translates this into English as “con-sense” or “consciousness” (True Intellectual System 159). It is by working out a particularly Platonic metaphysical theory that Cudworth develops his account of consciousness.