But if this be the significance of potentiality, may we describe it as a Power towards the thing that is to be? Is the Bronze a power towards a statue? Not in the sense of an effectively productive force: such a power could not be called a potentiality. Of course Potentiality may be a power, as, for instance, when we are referring not merely to a thing which may be brought into actualization but to Actuality itself (the Principle or Abstract in which potentiality and the power of realizing potentiality may be thought of as identical): but it is better, as more conducive to clarity, to use “Potentiality” in regard to the process of ACTUALIZATION and “Power” in regard to the Principle, Actuality. Enneads II,5,1
We come now to the purpose of all this discussion; to make clear in what sense or to what degree ACTUALIZATION is predicable in the Intellectual Realm and whether all is in ACTUALIZATION there, each and every member of that realm being an Act, or whether Potentiality also has place there. Enneads II,5,3
But after what mode does ACTUALIZATION exist in the Intellectual Realm? Is it the ACTUALIZATION of a statue, where the combination is realized because the Form-Idea has mastered each separate constituent of the total? No: it is that every constituent there is a Form-Idea and, thus, is perfect in its Being. Enneads II,5,3
So that Matter, as the ACTUALIZATION of Non-Being, is all the more decidedly Non-Being, is Authentic Non-Existence. Enneads II,5,5
Thus, since the very reality of its Nature is situated in Non-Being, it is in no degree the ACTUALIZATION of any definite Being. Enneads II,5,5
If it is to be present at all, it cannot be an ACTUALIZATION, for then it would not be the stray from Authentic Being which it is, the thing having its Being in Non-Beingness: for, note, in the case of things whose Being is a falsity, to take away the falsity is to take away what Being they have, and if we introduce actualization into things whose Being and Essence is Potentiality, we destroy the foundation of their nature since their Being is Potentiality. Enneads II,5,5