Enneads VI.1: Of the Ten Aristotelian and Four Stoic Categories
Intelligible and Sense-being Could Not Form a Single Kind
We have just said that intelligible being and sense-being could not form a single kind. Otherwise, above both intelligible being, and sense-being, there might be some third entity which would apply to both, being neither corporeal nor incorporeal; for if it were incorporeal, the body would be incorporeal; and if it were corporeal, the incorporeal would be corporeal.
In the first place, what common element is there in matter, form, and the concretion of matter and form? The (Aristotelians) give the name of “being” alike to these three entities, though recognizing that they are not “being” in the same degree. They say that form is more being than is matter, and they are right; they would not insist (as do the Stoics) that matter is being in the greater degree. Further, what element is common to the primary and secondary beings, since the secondary owe their characteristic title of “being” to the primary ones?