ON THE RETURN OF BEINGS TO THE FIRST

   Of the universal and perfect hypostatic substances, none turns towards its product. All
   perfect hypostatic substances return to the principles that generated them. The very body of
   the world, by the mere fact of its perfection, is converted to the intelligent Soul, and that
   is the cause of its motion being circular. The Soul of the world is converted to Intelligence,
   and this to the First. All beings, therefore, aspire to the First, each in the measure of its
   ability, from the very lowest in the ranks of the universe up. This anagogical return of
   beings to the First is necessary, whether it be mediate or immediate. So we may say that
   beings not only aspire to  the First, but that each being enjoys the First according to its
   capacity. The individual hypostatic substances, however, that are subject to declining towards
   manifoldness, naturally turn not only towards their author, but also towards their product.
   That is the cause of any subsequent fall and unfaithfulness. Matter perverts them because they
   possess the possibility of inclining towards it, though they are also able turn towards the
   divinity. That is how perfection makes second rank beings be born of the first principles, and
   then be converted towards them. It is, on the contrary, the result of imperfection, to turn
   higher entities to lower things, inspiring them with love for that which, before them,
   withdrew from the first principles in  favour of matter.

   

                                     Third Ennead, Book Eight:

                               On Nature, Contemplation, and the One

   

   ON THOUGHT

   Thought is not the same everywhere; it differs according to the nature of every being. In
   intelligence, it is intellectual; in the soul it is rational; in the plant it is seminal;
   last, it is superior to intelligence and existence in the principle that surpasses all these,
   that is, the One.

   

   ON LIFE

   The word "body" is not the only one that may be taken in different senses; such is also the
   case with "life." There is a difference between the life of the plant, of the animal, of the
   soul, of intelligence, and of super-intelligence. Indeed, intelligible entities are alive,
   though the things that proceed therefrom do not possess a life similar to theirs.

   

   ON THE ONE

   By using one's intelligence one may say many things about the super-intellectual principle.
   But it can be much better viewed by an absence of thought, than by thought. This is very much
   the same case as that of sleep, of which one can speak, up to a certain point, during the
   condition of wakefulness; but of which no knowledge of perception can be acquired except by
   sleeping. Indeed, like is known only by like; the condition of all knowledge is for the
   subject to be assimilated to the subject.

   

                               THE DIVINITY IS EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE

   The divinity is everywhere because it is nowhere. So also with intelligence and the sou1. But
   it is in relation to all beings that it surpasses, that the divinity is everywhere and
   nowhere; its presence and its absence depend entirely on its nature and its will. Intelligence
   is in the divinity, but it is only in relation to the things that are subordinated to it that
   intelligence is everywhere and nowhere. The body is within the soul and in divinity. All
   things that possess or do not possess existence proceed from divinity, and are within
   divinity; but the divinity is none of them, nor in any of them. If the divinity were only
   present everywhere, it would be all things, and in all things; but, on the other hand, it is
   nowhere: everything, therefore, is begotten in it and by it, because it is everywhere, but
   nothing becomes confused with it, because it is nowhere. Likewise if intelligence be the
   principle of the souls and of the things that come after the souls, it is because it is
   everywhere and nowhere. This is because it is neither soul, nor any of the things that come
   after the soul, nor in any of them; it is because it is not only everywhere, but also nowhere
   in respect to the beings that are inferior to it. Similarly the soul is neither a body, nor in
   the body, but is only the cause of the body, because she is simultaneously everywhere and
   nowhere in the body. So there is procession in the universe from what is everywhere and
   nowhere, down to what can neither simultaneously be everywhere and nowhere, and which limits
   itself to participating in this double property.

   

   Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie: Porphyry's Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind: An Introduction to
   the Neoplatonic Philosophy of Plotinus; 1988