Now, we have above posited certain premises. Intelligence, and even
every intelligence, includes within itself all (essences). We ranked
(Essence or Being) above all species that are parts thereof. Essence
is not yet Intelligence. From these it results that already developed
Intelligence is already something posterior. We shall therefore make
use of this study to achieve the goal we had set ourselves (namely,
to determine the relation of the genus to its contained species). We
shall therefore make use of Intelligence as an example to extend our
knowledge of this subject.
KNOWLEDGE IS THE ACTUALIZATION OF THE NOTIONS WHICH ARE POTENTIAL
SCIENCE.
20. Let us, therefore, suppose that Intelligence was in a state in
which it did not yet attach itself to anything in particular, so that
it had not yet become an individual intelligence. Let us conceive it
similar to knowledge considered by itself before the notions of the
particular species, or to the knowledge of a species taken before
the notions of the contained parts. Universal Knowledge, without (in
actualization) being any particular notion, potentially lies within
all notions, and reciprocally, each particular notion is one single
thing in actualization, but all things in potentiality; likewise
with universal Knowledge. The notions which thus refer to a species
exist potentially in universal Knowledge, because, while applying
itself to a species, they potentially are also universal Knowledge.
Universal Knowledge is predicated of each particular notion, without
the particular notion being predicated of universal Knowledge; but
universal Knowledge must none the less subsist in itself without
blending (with anything else[325]).
INTELLIGENCE IS THE POTENTIALITY OF THE INTELLIGENCES WHICH ARE ITS
ACTUALIZATIONS.
The case is similar with Intelligence. There is a kind of existence
of universal Intelligence, which is located above the particular
actualized intelligences, and is different from that of the particular
intelligences. These are filled with universal notions: universal
Intelligence furnishes to the particular intelligences the notions
they possess. It is the potentiality of these intelligences all of
which it contains in its universality; on their side, these, in their
particularity, contain universal Intelligence just as a particular
science implies universal science. The great Intelligence exists in
itself, and the particular intelligences also exist in themselves;
they are implied in universal Intelligence, just as this one is
implied in the particular intelligences. Each one of the particular
intelligences exists simultaneously in itself, and in something else
(in the universal Intelligence), just as universal Intelligence
exists simultaneously in itself and in all the others. In universal
Intelligence, which exists in itself, all particular intelligences
exist potentially, because it actually is all the intelligences,
and potentially each of them separately. On the contrary, these are
actualizations of the particular intelligences, and potentially
universal Intelligence. Indeed, so far as they are what is predicated
of them, they are actualizations of what is predicated; so far as
they exist in the genus that contains them, they are this genus
potentially.[326] Genus, as such, is potentially all the species it
embraces; it is none of them in actuality; but all are implied therein.
So far as genus is in actualization what exists before the species, it
is the actualization of the things which are not particular. As occurs
in the species, these particular things achieve such actualization only
by the actualization which emanates from the genus, and which, with
regard to them, acts as cause.