IV. This also will be evident to him who admires this sensible world; who surveys its magnitude and beauty, and the order of its perpetual motion; the Gods it contains, some of whom are visible, and others invisible; and the daemons, animals and plants, with which it is replete; and who ascends from these to its archetype, and the more true world [of which this is the image]. For there he will behold all intelligibles, which together with the intelligible world are eternal, and subsist in an appropriate intelligence and life. An undecaying intellect, likewise, and immense wisdom preside over this intelligible world; and a life which is in reality under Saturn, flourishes there; Saturn being a God, and a pure intellect. For he comprehends in himself all immortal natures, every intellect, every God, and every soul, all which subsist in him with invariable stability. For why should he seek after change, since he possesses an excellent condition of being ? Or whither should he transfer himself, since he possesses all things with himself Y But neither, being most perfect, will he seek to be increased. Hence, all things that are with him are perfect, in order that he may be entirely perfect, having nothing which does not partake of perfection ; and possessing nothing in himself which he does not intellectually perceive. But he intellectually perceives, not investigating, but possessing.1 Its blessedness, also, is not adventitious to it, but it possesses all things in eternity. And it is itself truly eternity, which time running round soul imitates, omitting some things, but applying itself to others. For other and again other things are about soul; since at one time the form of Socrates, and at another the form of horse present themselves to its view ; and always one certain thing among the number of beings. But intellect has all things. Hence, it possesses in the same all things established in the same. It likewise alone is, and is always, but is never future; for when the future arrives, it then also is; nor is it the past. For nothing there has passed away, but all things abide in the present now ; since they are things of such a kind, as to be satisfied with themselves thus subsisting. But each of them is intellect and being. And the whole is every intellect, and every being. Intellect, therefore, derives its subsistence as intellect, from the intellection of being. But being subsists as being, through becoming the object of intellectual perception to intellect, and through imparting to it, intellection and existence. There is, however, another cause of intellection, which is also the cause of existence to being. Of both therefore at once, there is another cause. For both these are con-subsistent, and never desert each other. But being two, this one thing [resulting from both] is at once intellect; and is being, intellective, and intelligible. It is intellect, indeed, so far as it is intellective; but being, so far as it is intelligible [or the object of perception to intellect]. For intellectual perception could not subsist, difference and sameness not existing. Intellect, therefore, being, difference and sameness, are the first of things. But it is likewise necessary to assume together with these, motion and permanency. And motion, indeed, is necessary if being intellectually perceives ; but permanency in order that it may remain the same; and difference, in order that it may be intellective and intelligible. For if you take away difference from it, then becoming one it will be perfectly silent. It is necessary, however, that intellective natures should be different from each other; and that they should also be the same with each other, since they subsist in the same thing, and there is something common in all of them. Diversity, likewise, is otherness. But these becoming many produce number and quantity. And the peculiarity of each of these produces quality, from all which, as principles, other things proceed.