On one hand, therefore, intelligence, and on the other the intelligible
and existence form but one and the same thing, namely, the primary
existence and primary Intelligence, which possesses realities, or
rather, which is identical with them. But if the thought-object and
the thought together form but a single entity, how will the thinking
object thus be able to think itself? Evidently thought will embrace
the intelligible, or will be identical therewith; but we still do not
see how intelligence is to think itself. Here we are: thought and the
intelligible fuse into one because the intelligible is an actualization
and not a simple power; because life is neither alien nor incidental
to it; because thought is not an accident for it, as it would be for
a brute body, as for instance, for a stone; and, finally, because
the intelligible is primary "being." Now, if the intelligible be an
actualization, it is the primary actualization, the most perfect
thought, or, "substantial thought." Now, as this thought is supremely
true, as it is primary Thought, as it possesses existence in the
highest degree, it is primary Intelligence. It is not, therefore,
mere potential intelligence; there is no need to distinguish within
it the potentiality from the actualization of thought; otherwise,
its substantiality would be merely potential. Now since intelligence
is an actualization, and as its "being" also is an actualization, it
must fuse with its actualization. But existence and the intelligible
also fuse with their actualization. Therefore[105] intelligence, the
intelligible, and thought will form but one and the same entity.
Since the thought of the intelligible is the intelligible, and as the
intelligible is intelligence, intelligence will thus think itself.
Intelligence will think, by the actualization of the thought to which
it is identical, the intelligible to which it also is identical.
It will think itself, so far as it is thought; and in so far as it
is the intelligible which it thinks by the thought to which it is
identical.[106]