§5.4.1. If there is something after that which is first, it is necessary that what comes from it does so either immediately, or else it has its ascent back to it through intermediaries and there is an ordering of things second and third,1 with the second ascending to the first and the third to the second. For there must be something simple prior to all 5things and different from all things after it, being by itself, not mixed with the things that come from it, all the while being able to be present to other things, having what those other things have in a different manner, being truly one, and not having its existing different from its being one.2 Given this, it is false that that of which there is no ‘account or scientific understanding’3 is even one;4 it is actually said to ‘transcend 10Substantiality’5 – for if it is not simple, beyond all combination and composition and not truly one, it would not be a principle. And it is absolutely self-sufficient by being simple and first of all. For that which is not first6 needs that which is prior to it, and that which is not simple is in need of the ‘simples’ in it in order that it be composed of them.715
That which is indeed one like this must be unique. For if there were something else like this, the two of them would be one. For we are not speaking about two bodies or saying that the One is the first body. For no body is simple. And a body is generated, and not a principle; ‘a principle is ungenerated’.8 Since the One is not corporeal, but truly one, it would be that which is first. If, therefore, there should be something 20different after that which is first, that thing would not itself be simple; it will, therefore, be a one-many.9
From where, then, does this come? It comes from that which is first. For it certainly doesn’t happen by chance. If it did, it would no longer be a principle of all things. How, then, does it come from that which is first? If that which is first is perfect, that is, the most perfect of all things and the first power, it must be the most powerful of all things, and the 25other powers imitate it as much as they are able. In the case of other things, we see whatever comes to perfection, generating, and not holding back so as to remain self-contained, but rather making something else. This is the case not only for things that have choice, but also for things that grow without choice – and even for things without souls, 30which give of themselves to the extent that they are able. For example, fire warms, and snow chills, and drugs which act on something else according to their own nature. Everything imitates the principle according to its capacity by tending towards eternity and goodness.
How, then, could that which is most perfect and that which is the first35 Good remain in itself as if it were grudging of itself, or without power – that which is the productive power of all things?10 How would it still be a principle? Something actually must come to be from it if indeed other things are to exist beside it. That these things come from it is a matter of necessity. That which is generated must certainly be the most honourable 40and, as second to it, must be better than everything else.
§5.4.2. If, then, Intellect itself were doing the generating, that which is generated must be inferior to Intellect, though as close as possible to Intellect and the same as it. But since that which generates transcends Intellect,11 that which is generated is necessarily Intellect. Why is that which generates not Intellect, the activity of which is intellection? But intellection sees the intelligible and turns towards it and is in a way 5perfected by this; it is itself indefinite like sight, and made definite by the intelligible. For this reason, it is said that ‘from the Indefinite Dyad and from the One’ come the Forms or Numbers.12 For this is Intellect. For this reason, Intellect is not simple, but multiple, revealing itself as a composite, although an intelligible one, and consequently seeing 10many things. It is, then, itself intelligible, but also thinking.13 For this reason, it is already two. But it is also an intelligible other than the One due to the fact that it comes after the One.
But how does this Intellect come from that which is intelligible?14 The intelligible, remaining in itself and not lacking anything, as does that which sees and that which thinks – I mean by ‘lacking’ the state of what thinks in respect of the intelligible – it is not in a way unperceiving;15 rather, all things that belong to it are in it, and with it. It is in every way self-discerning; its life is in itself and everything is in itself; and its grasping of itself15 is itself – a grasping that is as if by self-awareness in a state of eternal stability, or by an act of intellection that is different from the intellection of Intellect. If, then, something comes to be20 while it remains in itself, this thing comes to be from it when it is most of all what it is. While it remains, then, ‘in its own customary state’,16 that which comes to be comes to be from it, but comes to be while it remains. Since, then, it remains intelligible, that which comes to be is intellection. And since it is intellection, and intellection of that from which it came – for there is nothing else – it is Intellect, in a way 25a second intelligible and in a way a second One; an imitation and image of the One.17
But how does the Intellect come to be while the One remains? There is activity which is activity of the substance and there is activity which arises from the substance of each thing.18 And the activity of the substance is the actuality that each thing is, while the activity which arises from the substance, which absolutely had to follow of necessity, is 30different from it. For example, in the case of fire, there is the heat which fills out its substantiality, and there is another heat deriving from it, which at once comes to be when fire is actualizing its native substantiality by remaining fire.
It is actually the same for the intelligible world, and much more so there, where the One remains ‘in its own customary state’,19 and the activity generated by its perfect and internal activity acquires real 35existence, and inasmuch as it is from a great power, in fact, the greatest power of all, it comes into its existence and substantiality. For the One ‘transcends Substantiality’,20 and is the productive power to be all things; but it is already all things. Conversely, if Intellect is all things, the One transcends all things, and therefore transcends 40Substantiality.
But if the Intellect is all things, the One, not being equal to all things, is prior to them, and must, due to this, transcend Substantiality. But this Substantiality is the substantiality of Intellect; therefore, there is something that transcends Intellect. For Being is not a corpse, or something without life, or without thinking.21 Intellect and Being are actually identical. For Intellect is not of objects – as sense-perception is of 45sensibles22 – that pre-exist it, but Intellect itself is its objects, since Forms are not provided to it from elsewhere. Where would it get them from? But it is just where its objects are and is identical to them – that is, one with them. And the scientific understanding of things without matter is identical with those things.23
1 Cf. 5.1.8.1–4. See Pl. [?], 2nd Ep. 312E3–4.
2 Cf. 6.9.5.33.
3 See Pl., Parm. 142B5–C1.
4 See Pl., Parm. 142A3–4.
5 See Pl., Rep. 509B9.
6 Reading τοι μὴ with Igal.
7 Cf. 5.3.12.10–16; 5.5.9.1–15.
8 See Pl., Phdr. 245D3.
9 Cf. 5.1.8; 5.3.15.11; 6.2.15.14–15; 6.4.11.15–16. See Pl., Parm. 144E5.
10 Cf. 4.8.6.10–16; 5.1.7.9–10; 5.3.15.32–33, 16.2–3; 6.9.5.36–37. See Pl., Tim. 29E1–2.
11 See Pl., Rep. 509B9; Ar., On Prayer, apud Simplicius. In DC 485.19–22 (= fr. 1, p. 57 Ross).
12 Cf. 6.6.9.29–34 for Forms as Numbers. See Ar., Meta. 1.6.987b21–22; 13.7.1081a13–15.
13 See Ar., DA 3.4.430a4.
14 The One is ‘intelligible’ because it is ‘the productive power of all things’, that is, all that is intelligible. Cf. 5.5.6.19–20.
15 The term κατανόησις (‘grasping’) is elsewhere used for Intellect. Cf. 4.7.10.45, 47; 5.3.1.13.
16 See Pl., Tim. 42E5–6.
17 Cf. 5.1.6.47–48, 7.1; 5.3.16.41; 5.5.5.22–23.
18 Cf. 2.9.8.22–25; 4.5.7.15–17, 51–55; 5.1.6.34; 5.3.7.23–24; 5.9.8.13–15; 6.2.22.24–29; 6.7.18.5–6; 6.7.21.4–6; 6.7.40.21–24.
19 See Pl., Tim. 42E5–6.
20 See Pl., Rep. 509B9.
21 See Pl., Soph. 248E7–249A2.
22 See Ar., Cat. 7.8a11.
23 Cf. 5.9.8.3–17. See Ar., DA 3.4.430a3, 7.431a1–2, b17.