ALL THESE THINGS ARE IN INTELLIGENCE, WITHOUT CONSTITUTING IT.
All these entities (the universal Soul and her images) are Intelligence, though none of them constitutes Intelligence. They are Intelligence in this respect, that they proceed therefrom. They are not Intelligence in this respect that only by dwelling within itself Intelligence has given birth to them.[277]
THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS ONE IMMENSE CONCATENATION OF ALL THINGS.
Thus, in the universe, life resembles an immense chain in which every being occupies a point, begetting the following being, and begotten by the preceding one, and ever distinct, but not separate from the (upper) generating Being, and the (lower) begotten being into which it passes without being absorbed.
[SECOND ENNEAD, BOOK FOUR.]
Of Matter.
MATTER AS SUBSTRATE AND RESIDENCE OF FORMS.
1. Matter is a substrate (or subject) underlying nature, as thought Aristotle,[278] and a residence for forms. Thus much is agreed upon by all authors who have studied matter, and who have succeeded in forming a clear idea of this kind of nature; but further than this, there is no agreement. Opinions differ as to whether matter is an underlying nature (as thought Aristotle),[279] as to its receptivity, and to what it is receptive.