THE FIRST TWO GENERA ARE BEING AND MOVEMENT.
7. What and how much can be seen in the soul? Since we have found in the soul both being and life, and as both being and life are what is common in every soul, and as life resides in intelligence, recognizing that there is (besides the soul and her being) intelligence and its life, we shall posit as a genus what is common in all life; namely, movement; consequently, being and movement, which constitute primary life, will be our first two categories. Although (in reality) they fuse, they are distinguished by thought, which is incapable of approaching unity exclusively; and whose exercise compels this distinction. Besides, it is possible, you can, in other objects, clearly see essence, as distinct from movement or life, although their essence be not real, and only shadowy or figurative. Just as the image of a man lacks several things, and, among others, the most important, life; likewise, the essence of sense-objects is only an adumbration of the veritable essence, lacking as it does the highest degree of essence, namely, vitality, which appears in its archetype. So you see it is quite easy to distinguish, on one hand, essence from life, and, on the other, life from essence. Essence is a genus, and contains several species; now movement must not be subsumed under essence, nor be posited within essence, but should be equated with essence. When we locate movement within essence, it is not that we consider life is the subject of movement, but because movement is life’s actualization; only in thought can either exist separately. These two natures, therefore, form but a single one; for essence exists not in potentiality, but in actualization; and if we conceive of these two genera as separated from each other it will still be seen that movement is within essence, and essence within movement. In the unity of essence, the two elements, when considered separately, imply each other reciprocally; but thought affirms their duality, and shows that each of the two series is a double unity.
ANOTHER GENUS IS STABILITY. WHICH IS ONLY ANOTHER KIND OF MOVEMENT.
Since then it is in the sphere of essence that movement appears, and since movement manifests its perfection far rather than it divides its being; and since essence, in order to carry out the nature here assigned to it, must always persevere in movement, it would be still more absurd to deny it stability, than to refuse it movement. The notion and the conception of stability are still more in harmony with the nature of essence than are those of movement; for it is in essence that may be found what is called “remaining in the same state,” “existing in the same manner,” and “being uniform.” Let us therefore assert that stability is a genus different from movement, of which it seems to be the opposite.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN STABILITY AND ESSENCE.
In many ways it can be shown that stability must be kept apart from essence. In the first place, if stability were identical with essence, why should it be so, rather than movement, which is life, the actualization of being, and of essence itself? Since we have distinguished between movement and essence, and since we have said that it is both identical therewith, and still at the same time different from it; and because essence and movement are different from each other from one viewpoint, but from another, are identical; we must also (in thought) distinguish stability from essence without separating it (in existence); and by separating it in thought, we shall be making a distinct genus of it. Indeed, if stability and essence were to be confused together in a perfect union, if we were to acknowledge no difference between them, we would still be obliged to identify stability with movement oy the intermediation of essence; in this way stability and movement would together form but one and the same thing.
ESSENCE, STABILITY AND MOVEMENT EXIST BECAUSE THOUGHT BY INTELLIGENCE.
8. We must posit these three genera (essence, movement, and stability) because intelligence thinks each of them separately. By thinking them simultaneously, Intelligence posits them; and, as soon as Intelligence thinks them, they are (in existence). The things whose existence (“essence”) implies matter do not exist in Intelligence; for otherwise they would be immaterial. On the contrary, immaterial things come into existence by merely being thought. So then contemplate pure Intelligence, instead of seeking it with your bodily eyes, fix on it your interior gaze. Then will you see the hearth of “Being,” where shines an unsleeping light; you will see therein how essences subsist as simultaneously divided and united; you will see in it an abiding life, the thought which applies not to the future, but to the present; which possesses it already, and possesses it for ever; which thinks what is intimate to it, and not what is foreign. Intelligence thinks: and you have actualization and movement. Intelligence thinks what is in itself: and you have “being”” and essence; for, by merely existing, Intelligence thinks: Intelligence thinks itself as existing, and the object to which Intelligence applies its thought exists also. The actualization of Intelligence on itself Is not “being”; but the object to which it refers, the Principle from which it derives, is essence. Essence, indeed, is the object of intuition, but not intuition itself; the latter exists (has “essence”) only because it starts from, and returns thereto. Now as essence is an actualization, and not a potentiality, it unites both terms (existence and intuition, object and subject), and, without separating them, it makes of intuition essence, and of essence intuition. Essence is the unshakable foundation of all things, and support of their existence; it derives its possessions from no foreign source, holding them from itself, and within itself. It is simultaneously the goal of thought, because it is stability that never needed a beginning, and the principle from which thought was born, because it is unborn stability; for movement can neither originate from, nor tend towards movement. The idea also belongs to the genus of stability, because it is the goal (or limit) of intelligence; but the intellectual actualization by which it is thought constitutes movement. Thus all these things form but one thing; and movement, stability, and the things which exist in all essences constitute genera (or classifications). Moreover, every essence posterior to these genera is, in its turn, also definite essence, definite stability, and definite movement.
THIS TRIUNE PLAY IMPLIES ALSO IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE.
Summing up what we have discovered about the nature of Essence, we find first three genera. Then, these three, Essence, Movement and Stability were contemplated respectively by the essence, movement and stability within ourselves, which we also harmonized with those intelligibles. Then again we lost the power of distinguishing them by uniting, confusing, and blending these three genera. But a little later we divided, extricated and distinguished them so as again to see essence, movement and stability; three things, of which each exists apart. The result of this process then is that they are regarded as different, discerning them by their differences, and recognizing difference in essence by positing three things each of which exists apart. On the other hand, if they be considered in their relation with unity and in unity, if they be all reduced to being something single and identical, one may see the arising, or rather the existing of identity. To the three genera already recognized, therefore, we shall have to add identity or difference, or (in Platonic language), “sameness and other-ness.” These two classifications added to the three others, will in all make five genera for all things. Identity and difference (are genuine genera, indeed, because they) also communicate their characteristics to inferior (beings), each of which manifests some such element.
THESE FIVE GENERA ARE PRIMARY BECAUSE NOTHING CAN BE AFFIRMED OF THEM.
These five genera that we thus recognize are primary, because nothing can be predicated of them in the category of existence (being). No doubt, because they are essences, essence might be predicated of them; but essence would not be predicated of them because “being” is not a particular essence. Neither is essence to be predicated of movement or stability, for these are species of essence. Neither does essence participate in these four genera as if they were superior genera under which essence itself would be subsumed ; for stability, movement, identity and difference do not protrude beyond the sphere of essence, and are not anterior thereto.