MULTIPLICITY OF INTELLIGENCES IMPLIES THEIR MUTUAL DIFFERENCES.
If universal Intelligence comprises all the individual intelligences, might not the latter all be identical? No, for then there would be but one of them. The multiplicity of the intelligences implies therefore a difference between them.[107] But how does each differ from the others? Its difference resides in its being one; for there is no identity between the universal Intelligence, and any particular intelligence. Thus, in Intelligence, life is universal power; the vision which emanates from it is the power of all things; and then Intelligence itself, when it is formed, manifests all these things to us. He who is seated above all of them is their principle, though they do not serve Him as foundation; for, on the contrary, He is the foundation of the form of the first forms, without Himself having any forms. In respect to the Soul, Intelligence plays the part that the First plays in respect to Intelligence; Intelligence sheds its light on the Soul, and, to determine her, rationalizes her by communicating that of which itself is the trace. The Intellect, therefore, is the trace of the First; and while it is a form which develops in plurality, the First has no shape nor form, so as to give form to all the rest. If itself were a form, Intelligence would be nothing more than the "reason" (the soul).[108] That is why the First could not have contained any multiplicity; otherwise, its multiplicity itself would have had to be traced to some superior principle.