If, then, neither the Intellectual-Principle nor the Intelligible Object can be the First Existent, what is?
Our answer can only be:
The source of both.
What will This be; under what character can we picture It?
It must be either Intellective or without Intellection: if Intellective it is the Intellectual-Principle; if not, it will be without even knowledge of itself — so that, either way, what is there so august about it?
If we define it as The Good and the wholly simplex, we will, no doubt, be telling the truth, but we will not be giving any certain and lucid account of it as long as we have in mind no entity in which to lodge the conception by which we define it.
Yet: our knowledge of everything else comes by way of our intelligence; our power is that of knowing the intelligible by means of the intelligence: but this Entity transcends all of the intellectual nature; by what direct intuition, then, can it be brought within our grasp?
To this question the answer is that we can know it only in the degree of human faculty: we indicate it by virtue of what in ourselves is like it.
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