2. If the generating principle were intelligence, what it begot would
have to be inferior to intelligence, and nevertheless approximate
it, and resemble it more than anything else. Now as the generating
principle is superior to intelligence, the first begotten thing is
necessarily intelligence. Why, however, is the generating principle not
intelligence? Because the act of intelligence is thought, and thought
consists in seeing the intelligible; for it is only by its conversion
towards it that intelligence achieves a complete and perfect existence.
In itself, intelligence is only an indeterminate power to see; only by
contemplation of the intelligible does it achieve the state of being
determined. This is the reason of the saying, "The ideas and numbers,
that is, intelligence, are born from the indefinite doubleness, and the
One." Consequently, instead of being simple, intelligence is multiple.
It is composed of several elements; these are doubtless intelligible,
but what intelligence sees is none the less multiple. In any case,
intelligence is simultaneously the object thought, and the thinking
subject; it is therefore already double.