Thus, whenever you wish to speak of (the Divinity), or to gain a
conception of Him, put aside all the rest. When you will have made
abstraction of all the rest, and when you will thus have isolated
(the Divinity), do not seek to add anything to Him; rather examine
whether, in your thought, you have not omitted to abstract something
from Him. Thus you can rise to a Principle of whom you could not later
either assert or conceive anything else. Classify in the supreme rank,
therefore, none but He who really is free, because He is not even
dependence on Himself; and because he merely is Himself, essentially
Himself, while each of the other beings is itself, and something else
besides.