Nevertheless a philosophical study of unity will follow the following
course. Since it is Unity that we seek, since it is the principle
of all things, the Good, the First that we consider, those who will
wish to reach it must not withdraw from that which is of primary rank
to decline to what occupies the last, but they must withdraw their
souls from sense-objects, which occupy the last degree in the scale
of existence, to those entities that occupy the first rank. Such a
man will have to free himself from all evil, since he aspires to
rise to the Good. He will rise to the principle that he possesses
within himself. From the manifold that he was he will again become
one. Only under these conditions will he contemplate the supreme
principle, Unity. Thus having become intelligence, having trusted his
soul to intelligence, educating and establishing her therein, so that
with vigilant attention she may grasp all that intelligence sees,
he will, by intelligence, contemplate unity, without the use of any
senses, without mingling any of their perceptions with the flashes
of intelligence. He will contemplate the purest Principle, through
the highest degree of the purest Intelligence. So when a man applies
himself to the contemplation of such a principle and represents it to
himself as a magnitude, or a figure, or even a form, it is not his
intelligence that guides him in this contemplation for intelligence
is not destined to see such things; it is sensation, or opinion, the
associate of sensation, which is active in him. Intelligence is only
capable of informing us about things within its sphere.