THE FIRST, THEREFORE, BEING SUPRA-COGITATIVE, DOES NOT KNOW ITSELF.

Elsewhere we shall study how duality issues from unity. Here we merely insist that as the One is superior to "being," it must also be superior to thought. It is, therefore, reasonable to insist that it does not know itself, that it does not contain anything to be known, because it is simple. Still less will it know other beings. It supplies them with something greater and more precious than knowledge of beings, since it is the Good of all beings; from it they derive what is more important (than mere cogitation), the faculty of identifying themselves with it so far as possible.


[SECOND ENNEAD, BOOK FIVE.]
Of the Aristotelian Distinction Between Actuality and Potentiality.