6.7 is among the longest of treatises, and it evinces a long development of its theme: basically, what happens when soul is directed by the Good. To this end, we move in the course of the work from Intellect to the Good, beginning with the relation between sensible things and Intellect. A core claim is that being directed by the Good requires being directed by nothing else.
§§1–14 explain the relation between sensible things and the Forms. Intellect is the collection of Forms, complete Life.
The Good as cause or explanation:
§1. Did the gods give sensations to sensible living things, so that they can live? No, sense-perception was not given to living things by reasoning workmen gods, since god does not reason discursively.
§2. Intellect explains all of sensible life.
§3. But how can there be sensible living things in the intelligible, for they must have the capacity for sense-perception?
§4. Answering this question requires investigation of what the definition of human being includes.
§5. The definition is a mixture of two expressed principles, that for growth and that for intellect. Three human beings are to be distinguished: the first illuminates the second, the second the third.
§6. In Intellect, there is sense-perception of sensibles, such as they are in Intellect.
§7. Sense-perception in the intelligible is clear, in the sensible, faint.
§§8–14. All of the kinds of life can be in Intellect, since there is a hierarchy among them, and each of them represents Intellect in its own way.
§8. Intellect is the complete Living Being, containing all intellects and all souls.
§9. The powers unfold hierarchically, the lower from the higher, but the lower ones do not include all the power before them, but they make up for these deficiencies with their own peculiar attributes.
§10. Intellect is a unitary perfect Living Being; and this precludes it possessing differentiating attributes.
§11. The elements in matter derive from their veritable living counterparts in Intellect, being expressed principles like plants and animals.
§12. All living things are necessarily in the Living Being. In turn, all life is derived from one source.
§13. Intellect is variegated, indeed it comprises all life, since it fulfils its own nature as Substance.
§14. Intellect is a structured ‘one-many’, such that all things have their place in it.
§§15–42. The nature of the Good and its relation to Intellect.
The Forms are Good-like:
§§15–23. What does it mean to say that Forms and hence Intellect are Good-like? The Intellect turns towards the Good, but only in receiving the Good is there actual thought of the Forms. Only in this way does the soul desire Intellect. The paradox is that Forms resemble something without form.
§15. Intellect is complete Life, whereas life in the sensible world is merely a trace of the archetype. Intellect is Good-like, because it contains the Good in the Forms, so it is a variegated good.
§16. Intellect does not see the Good, it lives in accordance with it, hence the Good explains the Forms, Substance, and their being seen.
§17. Intellect acquires boundaries on having seen the Good, hence the Forms are in Intellect, and are themselves intellects. Intellect makes Soul rational by passing on a trace of what it itself receives from the Good.
§19. But each thing is not good because of desire, and because of each thing’s virtue in the sensible world, but not in Intellect, since there nothing is bad. Reason still needs to understand in what way the Good is in the Forms.
§20. Intellect is not the Good, since, although soul desires it, not everything does.
§21. The activity of Intellect and its contents are Good-like insofar as they are derived from the Good, and bounded. Soul desires the life of Intellect insofar as this is derived from the Good.
§22. Each thing is what it is in itself, but it becomes desired when the Good itself colours it, because this gives it grace and love in the eyes of those desiring it.
§23. There must be the Good, otherwise there would be no vice either. The Good produces Intellect, Life, and Soul.
Nine questions about defining the Good:
§§24–30. Is the Good all that the soul desires? Is the Good a mixture of pleasure and knowledge?
§24. The Good is what everything desires; that is how we know there is the Good. The objection is then raised that in and of themselves Life and Intellect, and anything beyond them, are not good.
§25. Our good includes joy, but the Good itself is desired because it is good, not vice versa. The good of the body is soul, that of the soul is virtue. Then comes Intellect, and finally, the Good. It provides ‘light’ to Intellect.
§26. One can tell that one has hit on the good when things improve, there is fulfilment and no regrets. Pleasure, in contrast, always requires continuation with something new.
§27. Appropriation occurs for each thing when it attains its own fulfilment, which is determined by something superior to itself. This leaves the question of what the primary Good is.
§28. Matter has awareness of the Good, that is, being formed, and so being something. The Good is as far from matter as possible.
§29. Pleasure is not characteristic of the primary Good, since it consists in filling a need.
§30. We have a portion of the Good because of a mixture of truth, measurement, and beauty.
The soul’s return to its origin in the Good:
§§31–36. The Good goes beyond the truth, beauty, and proportion of Intellect. When the soul is directed by the Good alone, this means that it is not directed by any Form whatever.
§31. On account of the love of the Good in the soul, it moves beyond sensible things, and Intellect, and desires to make itself like the thing it loves.
§32. The principle of the beauty of the Forms lies in something formless, namely, in the Good.
§33. Form is measured, but Beauty itself is without measure, and without form: Beauty is the nature of the Good itself.
§34. When the soul arrives at Beauty itself, it sheds all other properties, and has a contentment that cannot be surpassed.
§35. When soul arrives at the Good, all motion, and thought, ceases. Intellect can both think its own contents, and also be receptive for the Good. The Good unifies soul and intellect when it is present to them.
§36. Cognizing the Good is ‘the most important subject of learning’. In its case, seeing and light are one.
The Good and thought:
§§37–42. The separation of Intellect from the Good, and the hierarchy of existence.
§37. The Good does not think, and so does not think itself, as the Peripatetics claim.
§38. The Good is not, has no predicates and does not think itself.
§39. Thinking and Substantiality requires Difference, so that the Good cannot think itself, on pain of not being simple.
§40. Persuasion is added to the arguments: the Good is unmixed with thinking, and is only attained when one moves beyond thought.
§41. Since the Good is perfectly one, primary and independent, it cannot think, since thinking requires an object.
§42. The hierarchy: all beings are for the sake of the Good. Intelligibles follow the Good directly, Soul in Intellect produces the sensible things.