Enneads V.9: Of Intelligence, Ideas and Essence
Thought Is the Form, Shape the Actualization of the Being
8. Since the thought is something essentially one (?), the form, which is the object of thought, and the idea[134, 134a] are one and the same thing. Which is this thing? Intelligence and the intellectual “being,” for no idea is foreign to intelligence; each form is intelligence, and the whole intelligence is all the forms; every particular form is a particular intelligence. Likewise science, taken in its totality, is all the notions it embraces; every notion is a part of the total science; it is not separated from the science locally, and exists potentially in the whole science. Intelligence resides within itself, and by possessing itself calmly, is the eternal fulness of all things. If we conceived it as being prior to essence, we would have to say that it was the action and thought of Intelligence which produced and begat all beings. But as, on the contrary, it is certain that essence is prior to Intelligence, we should, within the thinking principle, first conceive the beings, then actualization and thought, just as (the nature) of fire is joined by the actualization of the fire, so that beings have innate intelligence (?) as their actualization. Now essence is an actualization; therefore essence and intelligence are but a single actualization, or rather both of them fuse. Consequently, they form but a single nature, as beings, the actualization of essence, and intelligence. In this case the thought is the form, and the shape is the actualization of the being. When, however, in thought we separate essence from Intelligence, we must conceive one of these principles as prior to the other. The Intelligence which operates this separation is indeed different from the essence from which it separates; but the Intelligence which is inseparable from essence and which does not separate thought from essence is itself essence and all things.
9. What then are the things contained within the unity of Intelligence which we separate in thinking of them? They must be expressed without disturbing their rest, and we must contemplate the contents of Intelligence by a science that somehow remains within unity. Since this sense-world is an animal which embraces all animals, since it derives both its general and special existence from a principle different from itself, a principle which, in turn, is derived from intelligence, therefore intelligence must itself contain the universal archetype, and must be that intelligible world of which Plato (well) says; “Intelligence sees the ideas contained within the existing animal.” Since an animal, whose (seminal) reason exists with the matter fit to receive it, must of course be begotten, so the mere existence of a nature that is intellectual, all-powerful, and unhindered by any obstacle—since nothing can interpose between it and the (substance) capable of receiving the form—must necessarily be adorned (or, created) by intelligence, but only in a divided condition does it reveal the form it receives, so that, for instance, it shows us on one hand a man, and on the other the sun, while intelligence possesses everything in unity.
IN THE SENSE-WORLD ONLY THOSE THINGS THAT ARE FORMS PROCEED FROM INTELLIGENCE.
10. Therefore, in the sense-world, all the things that are forms proceed from intelligence; those which are not forms do not proceed therefrom. That is, in the intelligible world we do not find any of the things that are contrary to nature, any more than we find what is contrary to the arts in the arts themselves. Thus the seminal reason does not contain the defects, such as limping would be in a body. Congenital lameness is due to the reason’s failure to dominate matter, while accidental lameness is due to deterioration of the form (idea?).