Our own definition of the Good, interested as we are not in its cause,
but in its essence, is that the perfect life, that is genuine and real,
consists in intelligence. The other kinds of life are imperfect. They
offer no more than the image of life. They are not Life in its fulness
and purity. As we have often said they are not life, rather than its
contrary. In one word, since all living beings are derived from one
and the same Principle, and since they do not possess an equal degree
of life, this principle must necessarily be the primary Life, and
perfectness.