6. Intelligible entities, indeed, though they form a manifold, nevertheless, form an unity. On the other hand, though they form an unity, yet by virtue of their infinite nature they also form a manifold. They are the multitude in unity, and unity in multitude; they all subsist together. They direct their actualization towards the whole, with the whole, and it is still with the whole, that they apply themselves to the part. The part receives within itself the first action, as if it were that of only a part; but, nevertheless, it is the whole that acts. It is as if a Man-in-himself, on descending into a certain man, became this man without, however, ceasing being the Man-in-himself. The material man, proceeding from the ideal Man, who is single, has produced a multitude of men, who are the same because one and the same thing has impressed its seal on a multitude. Thus the Man-in-himself, and every intelligible entity in itself, and then the whole entire universal Essence is not in the multitude, but the multitude is in the universal Essence, or rather, refers to it; for if whiteness be everywhere present in the body, it is not in the same manner as the soul of an individual is present and identical in all the organs. It is in this latter manner that the essence is present everywhere. PARABLE OF THE HEAD WITH FACES ALL AROUND. 7. Our nature and we ourselves all depend on (cosmic) being; we aspire to it, we use it as principle, from the very beginning. We think the intelligible (entities contained in essence) without having either images or impressions thereof. Consequently, when we think the intelligible (entities), the truth is that we are these very intelligible entities themselves. Since we thus participate in the genuine knowledge, we are the intelligible entities, not because we receive them in us, but because we are in them. However, as beings other than we constitute intelligible entities, as well as we, we are all the intelligibles. We are intelligible entities so far as they subsist simultaneously with all essences; consequently, all of us together form but a single unity. When we turn our gaze outside of Him from whom we depend, we no longer recognize that we are an unity; we then resemble a multitude of faces which (being disposed in a circle) would, as seen from the exterior, form a plurality, but which in the interior would form but a single head. If one of these faces could turn around, either spontaneously, or by the aid of Minerva, it would see that itself is the divinity, that it is the universal Essence. No doubt, it would not at first see itself as universal, but later, not being able to find any landmarks by which to determine its own limits, and to determine the distance to which it extends, it would have to give up the attempt to distinguish itself from the universal (Essence), and it would become the universal (Essence) without ever changing location, and by remaining in the very foundation of the universal (Essence).