We still have to study the proper conception of Him who is superior
to the Intelligence that is so universally beautiful and varied, but
who Himself is not varied. To Him the soul aspires without knowing
why she wishes to possess Him; but reason tells us He is essential
beauty, since the nature of Him who is excellent and sovereignly
lovable cannot absolutely have any form. That is why the soul, whatever
object you may show her in your process of reducing an object to a
form, ever seeks beyond the shaping principle. Now reason tells us
in respect to anything that has a shape, that as a shape or form is
something measured (or limited), (anything shaped) cannot be genuinely
universal, absolute, and beautiful in itself, and that its beauty is
a mixture. Therefore though the intelligible entities be beautiful
(they are limited); while He who is essential beauty, or rather the
super-beautiful, must be unlimited, and consequently have no shape or
form. He who then is beauty in the first degree, and primary Beauty, is
superior to form, and the splendor of the intelligible (world) is only
a reflection of the nature of the Good.