What is this? The Intellectual-Principle taken separately, perhaps? No: an Intellect is always inseparable from an INTELLIGIBLE object; eliminate the INTELLIGIBLE, and the Intellectual-Principle disappears with it. If, then, what we are seeking cannot be the Intellectual-Principle but must be something that rejects the duality there present, then the Prior demanded by that duality must be something on the further side of the Intellectual-Principle. Enneads III,8,9
Yet: our knowledge of everything else comes by way of our intelligence; our power is that of knowing the INTELLIGIBLE by means of the intelligence: but this Entity transcends all of the intellectual nature; by what direct intuition, then, can it be brought within our grasp? To this question the answer is that we can know it only in the degree of human faculty: we indicate it by virtue of what in ourselves is like it. Enneads III,8,9