(Mind is itself thinkable in exactly the same way as its objects
are. For (a) in the case of objects which involve no matter, what
thinks and what is thought are identical; for speculative knowledge
and its object are identical. (Why mind is not always thinking we must
consider later.) (b) In the case of those which contain matter each of
the objects of thought is only potentially present. It follows that
while they will not have mind in them (for mind is a potentiality of
them only in so far as they are capable of being disengaged from
matter) mind may yet be thinkable.
5
Since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two
factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the
particulars included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive
in the sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the
former, as e.g. an art to its material), these distinct elements
must likewise be found within the soul.
And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is what it is by
virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it
is by virtue of making all things: this is a sort of positive state
like light; for in a sense light makes potential colours into actual
colours.
Mind in this sense of it is separable, impassible, unmixed, since it
is in its essential nature activity (for always the active is superior
to the passive factor, the originating force to the matter which it
forms).
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