9. What, then, is the content – inevitably separated by our minds – of this one Intellectual-Principle? For there is no resource but to represent the items in accessible form just as we study the various articles constituting one science.
This universe is a living thing capable of including every form of life; but its Being and its modes are derived from elsewhere; that source is traced back to the Intellectual-Principle: it follows that the all-embracing archetype is in the Intellectual-Principle, which, therefore, must be an intellectual Kosmos, that indicated by Plato in the phrase “The living existent.”
Given the Reason-Principle (the outgoing divine Idea) of a certain living thing and the Matter to harbour this seed-principle, the living thing must come into being: in the same way once there exists – an intellective Nature, all powerful, and with nothing to check it – since nothing intervenes between it and that which is of a nature to receive it – inevitably the higher imprints form and the lower accepts, it. The recipient holds the Idea in division, here man, there sun, while in the giver all remains in unity.