That the sphere is endowed with a soul is clear upon reflection. However, he who hears this may deem this a matter that is difficult to grasp or [12b] may regard it as impossible because of his imagining that when we say, “endowed with a soul,” the soul referred to is like the soul of a man, or an ass and a bull. Now this is not the meaning of that dictum. This meaning is rather that the local motion of the sphere is a proof of there indubitably being in it a principle in virtue of which it is moved. And this principle is undoubtedly and incontestably a soul. This may be explained as follows. It is absurd that the circular motion of the sphere should be similar to the rectilinear motion of the stone downwards or to the motion of the fire upwards, so that the principle of that motion1 would be a nature and not a soul. For what is moved in natural motion is only moved by the principle subsisting in it, when the object to be moved is not in its place, and it is moved in order that it may seek to come to its place. However, when the object in question reaches its place, it comes to rest. The sphere, on the other hand, is moved in its own place in a circular motion. Now it does not follow from the fact that the sphere is likewise endowed with a soul that it should be in motion in such a way. For every being endowed with a soul moves because of a certain nature or because of a mental representation. I mean here by the expression “nature,” the seeking to attain what agrees with one and the flight from what disagrees. Now it makes no difference whether the mover, in this, of the being endowed with a soul is outside that being — as in the case of an animal fleeing from the heat of the sun or betaking itself when it is thirsty to a place where there is water — or whether that mover is an imagination — for an animal is moved also through imagining what disagrees and agrees with it. Now the sphere is not set in motion with a view to fleeing from what disagrees with it or with a view to seeking to attain what agrees with it. For it moves away from the point toward which it had moved, and it moves toward every point from which it had moved away. Furthermore if the motion of the sphere were because of this,2 it would follow necessarily that the sphere, at some time, must reach the point toward which it was moved and come to rest. For if it was moved in order to seek to attain something or in order to flee from something, and it must be considered that this end can never be achieved — then consequently a motion of this kind would be in vain. In consequence this circular motion [13a] can only come about in virtue of a certain mental representation, which determines the sphere’s moving in that particular way. Now there is no mental representation without an intellect. In consequence the sphere must be endowed with an intellect. Again, not everyone who has an intellect with which he represents a certain notion to himself and who has a soul in virtue of which he is able to move, moves while representing something to himself. For mental representation alone does not necessitate motion, as has been explained in the first philosophy and as is clear. For you can find with regard to your own self that you may represent many notions to yourself and be capable of moving toward them, and yet not move toward them in any way before a desire for the notion you had represented to yourself is necessarily produced in you. Thereupon you move in order to obtain3 what you had represented to yourself. Accordingly it likewise is clear that the soul, in virtue of which there is the motion, and the intellect, by which the object is represented to oneself, are not both of them together sufficient to account for the coming-about of such a motion until desire for the notion represented is conjoined with them. Furthermore, it follows necessarily from this that the sphere has a desire for that which it represents to itself and which is the beloved object: namely, the deity, may His name be exalted. He4 says that it is in this manner that the deity causes the sphere to move, I mean to say through the fact that the sphere desires to come to be like that which it apprehends, which is the notion represented — a notion that is most exceedingly simple, in which there is no change and no coming-about of a new state, and from which good always overflows. This5 is impossible for the sphere qua a body unless its activity be a circular motion and nothing else. For this is the final perfection of what is possible for a body to have as its perpetual activity. For it is the simplest of motions that a body may have; and no change occurs because of it in the essence of the body or in the overflow of good6 effects resulting necessarily from the motion of the body.
When all this became clear to Aristotle, he started to reflect again and found that it may be proved [13b] by demonstration that the spheres are many and that the motion of one particular sphere differs from that of another in regard to swiftness or slowness as well as the direction of movement, although circular motion was common to all of them. According to physical speculation, he was compelled to believe that the notion represented to itself by one particular sphere, in consequence of which notion it accomplishes the movement7 swiftly in one day, is not the notion represented to itself by another sphere, which accomplishes one movement in thirty years. Accordingly he affirmed categorically that there exist separate intellects whose number is equal to that of the spheres, that every sphere desires the intellect that is its principle and is the mover causing it to move according to the movement proper to it, and that that intellect is the mover of that sphere. Neither Aristotle nor anyone else has affirmed categorically that the number of the intellects is ten or one hundred; but he stated that their number was equal to that of the spheres. As it was thought in his time that there are fifty spheres, Aristotle stated that, if that were so, there were fifty separate intellects. For in his time there was little knowledge of mathematics, and this science had not been brought to perfection. It accordingly was thought that every motion requires a separate sphere. For they did not know that many apparent movements may result from the inclination of one sphere. Thus you might speak of the motion of a star with respect to longitude and declination and also of its apparent motion in the circle of the horizon as far as the places of its rising and setting are concerned. However, this is not our subject, and we shall now go back to that with which we were dealing.
With regard to the opinion of the later philosophers that there are ten separate intellects, it may be explained by the fact that they counted the globes in which there are stars as well as the all-encompassing sphere, although in some of these globes there are several spheres. The globes are nine according to their reckoning; namely, the one that encompasses the universe, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the spheres of the seven [14a] planets.8 The tenth intellect is the Active Intellect, whose existence is indicated by the facts that our intellects pass from potentiality to actuality and that the forms of the existents that are subject to generation and corruption are actualized after they have been in their matter only in potentia. Now everything that passes from potentiality to actuality must have necessarily something that causes it to pass and that is outside it. And this cause must belong to the species of that which it causes to pass from potentiality to actuality. For a carpenter does not build a storehouse qua a maker, but because there subsists in his mind the form of the storehouse. For it is the form of the storehouse subsisting in the mind of the carpenter that caused the form of the storehouse to pass into actuality and to be realized in timber. In this way the giver of a form is indubitably a separate form, and that which brings intellect into existence is an intellect, namely, the Active Intellect. Thus the relation of the Active Intellect to the elements9 and that which is composed of them is similar to the relation obtaining between every separate intellect particularly related to a sphere and that sphere. Furthermore the relation of the intellect in actu existing in us, which derives from an overflow of the Active Intellect and through which we apprehend the Active Intellect, is similar to that of the intellect of every sphere that exists in the latter, deriving its being in it from the overflow of a separate intellect — an intellect through which the sphere apprehends the separate intellect, makes a mental representation of the latter, desires to become like it, and in consequence moves.10
In this connection [Aristotle] deals further with a matter that has already been demonstrated, namely, that God, may He be magnified and held sublime, does not do things in a direct fashion. Thus He burns by means of a fire, and this fire is moved by means of the motion of the sphere, and the sphere in its turn is moved by means of a separate intellect. For the intellects are the angels, which are near to Him, by means of whom the spheres are moved. And as by reason of their being separate from matter, no multiplicity due to [14b] a difference between their essences is at all possible with regard to them because they are not bodies, it follows necessarily that the deity, may He be exalted, has — according to him11 — brought into existence the first intellect, who is the mover of the first sphere in the way that we have explained. Again the intellect that causes the second sphere to move has as its cause and principle the first intellect, and so on, so that the intellect that causes the sphere that is contiguous with us to move is the cause and principle of the Active Intellect. With the latter the separate intellects come to an end, just as bodies begin similarly with the highest sphere and come to an end with the elements and what is composed of them. It cannot be true that the intellect that moves the highest sphere should be identical with the necessary of existence. For it has in common with the other intellects one separately conceivable thing, namely, that represented by the act of causing bodies to move. Now every intellect is distinguished from any other intellect with respect to one separately conceivable thing. In consequence each one of the ten intellects is endowed with two separately conceivable things. Accordingly there can be no doubt that all of them have one first cause. This is the assertion and the opinion of Aristotle; and his proofs for this, in so far as they are probable, are set forth in the works of his followers. All his disquisition may be summed up as follows: All spheres are living bodies, endowed with a soul and an intellect, having a mental representation and an apprehension of the deity and also a mental representation of their own first principles. In that which exists,12 there are separate intellects that are in no way a body. All of them overflow from God, may He be exalted, and they are the intermediaries between God and all these bodies.
I now shall explain to you in the following chapters what in our Law corresponds to these opinions and what in it differs from them. [15a]