In which of these things does the form of the Good inhere in the
highest degree? The solution of this problem depends on the following
one. Is life a good merely as such, even if it were life pure and
simple? Should we not rather limit that word "life" to the life which
derives from the Good, so that mere proceeding from the Good be a
sufficient characterization of life? What is the nature of this life?
Is it the life of the Good? No: life does not belong to the Good; it
only proceeds therefrom. If the characteristic of life be proceeding
from the Good, and if it be real life, evidently the result would be
that nothing that proceeds from the Good would deserve scorn, that
life as life should be considered good, that the same condition of
affairs obtains with the primary and veritable Intelligence, and that
finally each form is good and bears the form of Good. In this case,
each of these (life, intelligence and idea) possess a good which is
either common, or different, or which is of a different degree. Since
we have admitted that each of the above-mentioned things contains a
good in its being, then it is good chiefly because of this good. Thus
life is a good, not in so far as it is merely life, but in so far as
it is real life and proceeds from the Good. Intelligence likewise is
a good so far as it essentially is intelligence; there is therefore
some common element in life and intelligence. Indeed, when one and the
same attribute is predicated of different beings, although it form
an integral part of their being, it may be abstracted therefrom by
thought; thus from "man" and "horse" may be abstracted "animal"; from
"water" and "fire," "heat"; but what is common in these beings is a
genus, while what is common in intelligence and life, is one and the
same thing which inheres in one in the first degree, and in the other
in the second.