Justice and self-control [sophrosyne], and virtue in general-these are all various Acts of Intelligence: they are consequently not primary genera; they are posterior to a genus, that is to say, they are species.
19.Having established our four primary genera, it remains for us to enquire whether each of them of itself alone produces species.
And especially, can Being be divided independently, that is without drawing upon the other genera? Surely not: the differentiae must come from outside the genus differentiated: they must be differentiae of Being proper, but cannot be identical with it.
Where then is it to find them? Obviously not in non-beings.If then in beings, and the three genera are all that is left, clearly it must find them in these, by conjunction and couplement with these, which will come into existence simultaneously with itself.
But if all come into existence simultaneously, what else is produced but that amalgam of all Existents which we have just considered [Intellect]? How can other things exist over and above this all-including amalgam? And if all the constituents of this amalgam are genera, how do they produce species? How does Motion produce species of Motion? Similarly with Stability and the other genera.
A word of warning must here be given against sinking the various genera in their species; and also against reducing the genus to a mere predicate, something merely seen in the species.The genus must exist at once in itself and in its species; it blends, but it must also be pure; in contributing along with other genera to form Substance, it must not destroy itself.There are problems here that demand investigation.
But since we identified the amalgam of the Existents [or primary genera] with the particular intellect, Intellect as such being found identical with Being or Substance, and therefore prior to all the Existents, which may be regarded as its species or members, we may infer that the intellect, considered as completely unfolded, is a subsequent.
Our treatment of this problem may serve to promote our investigation; we will take it as a kind of example, and with it embark upon our enquiry.
20.We may thus distinguish two phases of Intellect, in one of which it may be taken as having no contact whatever with particulars and no Act upon anything; thus it is kept apart from being a particular intellect.In the same way science is prior to any of its constituent species, and the specific science is prior to any of its component parts: being none of its particulars, it is the potentiality of all; each particular, on the other hand, is actually itself, but potentially the sum of all the particulars: and as with the specific science, so with science as a whole.The specific sciences lie in potentiality in science the total; even in their specific character they are potentially the whole; they have the whole predicated of them and not merely a part of the whole.At the same time, science must exist as a thing in itself, unharmed by its divisions.
So with Intellect.Intellect as a whole must be thought of as prior to the intellects actualized as individuals; but when we come to the particular intellects, we find that what subsists in the particulars must be maintained from the totality.The Intellect subsisting in the totality is a provider for the particular intellects, is the potentiality of them: it involves them as members of its universality, while they in turn involve the universal Intellect in their particularity, just as the particular science involves science the total.
The great Intellect, we maintain, exists in itself and the particular intellects in themselves; yet the particulars are embraced in the whole, and the whole in the particulars.The particular intellects exist by themselves and in another, the universal by itself and in those.All the particulars exist potentially in that self-existent universal, which actually is the totality, potentially each isolated member: on the other hand, each particular is actually what it is [its individual self], potentially the totality.In so far as what is predicated of them is their essence, they are actually what is predicated of them; but where the predicate is a genus, they are that only potentially.On the other hand, the universal in so far as it is a genus is the potentiality of all its subordinate species, though none of them in actuality;all are latent in it, but because its essential nature exists in actuality before the existence of the species, it does not submit to be itself particularized.If then the particulars are to exist in actuality- to exist, for example, as species- the cause must lie in the Act radiating from the universal.
21.How then does the universal Intellect produce the particulars while, in virtue of its Reason-Principle, remaining a unity? In other words, how do the various grades of Being, as we call them, arise from the four primaries? Here is this great, this infinite Intellect, not given to idle utterance but to sheer intellection, all-embracing, integral, no part, no individual: how, we ask, can it possibly be the source of all this plurality?
Number at all events it possesses in the objects of its contemplation: it is thus one and many, and the many are powers, wonderful powers, not weak but, being pure, supremely great and, so to speak, full to overflowing powers in very truth, knowing no limit, so that they are infinite, infinity, Magnitude-Absolute.