ACTUALIZED BEING LESS PERFECT THAN ESSENCE.
We are thus led to ask how a being can be composed of non-beings? It has already been pointed out that the things subject to generation could not be identical with the principles from which they proceed. Let us now add that they could not be beings. But still, how can one say that the intelligible being is constituted by a non-being? The reason is that in the intelligible world since being forms a purer and more refined essence, being really is somehow constituted by the differences of essence; or rather, we feel it ought to be called being from considering it together with its energies (or, actualizations). This being seems to be a perfecting of essence; but perhaps being is less perfect when it is thus considered together with its actualizations; for, being less simple, it veers away from essence.