9. (To explain our view we shall propose an experiment[234]). Let us imagine that in the sense-world every being should remain as it is, confusing itself with the others in the unity of the whole, to the extent of its ability; so that all that we see is lost in this unity. Imagine a transparent sphere exterior to the spectator, by looking through which one might see all that it contains, first the sun and the other stars together, then the sea, the earth, and all living beings. At the moment of picturing to yourself in thought a transparent sphere that would contain all moving, resting and changeable things, preserving the form of this sphere, and without diminishing the size of it, suppress mass, extent, and material conception. Then invoke the divinity that created this world of which you have made yourself an image to invest it. His coming down into it may be conceived of as resulting from two causes. Either the Divinity that is simultaneously single and manifold will come to adorn this world in the company of the other inferior divinities which exist within Him. Each of these would contain all the others that are manifold because of their powers; and nevertheless they would form a single divinity because their multiple powers are contained in unity. Or the Divinity will do this because the only divinity contains all the inferior divinities within His breast. (Which is the more likely hypothesis?) ALL THE INFERIOR DIVINITIES ARE CONTAINED WITHIN THE SUPREME. Indeed, this only Divinity loses none of His power by the birth of all the divinities contained within Him. All co-exist, and their individual distinctions obtain without their occupying separate localities or affecting a sense-form. Otherwise the one would be here, and the other there; each one would be individual, without simultaneously being universal in itself. Neither have they any parts that differ in each of them, or from each other; neither is the whole formed by each of them a power divided in a multiplicity of parts, a power whose magnitude would be measured by the number of its parts. Taken in its universality the intelligible world possesses a universal Power, which penetrates everything in its infinite development without exhausting its infinite force. He is so great that even His parts are infinite. There is no locality that He does not interpenetrate. Even our world is great; it likewise contains all the powers; but it would be much better, and its magnitude would be inconceivable if it did not also contain physical powers, which are essentially small (because limited). Fire and the other bodies cannot be called great powers because they consist only of an image of the infinity of the genuine Power by burning, crushing, destroying, and contributing to the generation of animals. They destroy only because they themselves are destroyed; they contribute to generation only because they themselves are generated. BEING IS DESIRABLE BECAUSE BEAUTIFUL.