Thus the All stands as one all-complete Life, whose members, to the measure in which each contains within itself the Highest, effect all that is high and noble: and the entire scheme must be subordinate to its Dirigeant as an army to its general, “following upon Zeus” – it has been said – “as he proceeds towards the Intelligible Kind.” Enneads II,3,13
If all this is so, then [the secret of creation is that] the Soul of the All abides in contemplation of the Highest and Best, ceaselessly striving towards the Intelligible Kind and towards God: but, thus absorbing and filled full, it overflows – so to speak – and the image it gives forth, its last utterance towards the lower, will be the creative puissance. Enneads II,3,18