13. In the second place the so-called “Theology of Aristotle” may be referred to. In it Plato is represented as the Ideal-Man, who gains a knowledge of all things by means of an intuitive thinking, and thus has no need of the logical resources of Aristotle. Indeed, the highest reality—Absolute Being—is not apprehended by thinking, but only in an ecstatic Vision. “Often was I alone with my soul”, says Aristotle-Plotinus, on this point. “Divested of the body, I entered as pure substance into my proper self, turning back from all that is external to what is within. I was pure knowing there, at once the knowing and the known. How astonished I was to behold beauty and splendour in my proper self, and to recognize that I was a part of the sublime Divine world, endowed even with creative life! In this assurance of self, I was lifted above the world of the senses, ay, even above the world of spirits, up to the Divine state, where I beheld a light so fair that no tongue can tell it, nor ear understand”. The soul forms the centre of the discussions in the ‘Theology’ also. All true human science is science of the soul or knowledge of self,—knowledge of its essence, it is true, coming first, and next in order, though less complete, knowledge of the operations of that essence. In such knowledge, to which exceedingly few attain, the highest wisdom consists, which does not admit of being fully understood in the form of ideas, and which therefore the philosopher like a skilful artist and wise lawgiver represents, for us men, in ever beautiful figures in religious service. In this function precisely, the wise man comes forward as the potent, self-sufficing magician, whose knowledge lords it over the multitude, seeing that they remain always bound in the fetters of outward things, of presentations and desires. The soul stands in the centre of the All. Above it are God and Intelligence, beneath it—Matter and Nature. Its coming from God through Intelligence into Matter, its presence in the body, its return on high—these are the three stadia in which its life and that of the world run their course. Matter and Nature, Sense-perception and Presentation here lose their significance almost entirely. All things exist by Intelligence (νοῦς, ʻaql). Intelligence constitutes all things, and in Intelligence all things are One. The Soul too is Intelligence, but, so long as it stays in the body, it is Intelligence in hope, Intelligence in the form of longing. It longs for what is above, for the good and blessed stars, which spend their contemplative existence as sources of light, exalted above presentation and effort. That then is the oriental Aristotle, as he was acknowledged by the earliest Peripatetics in Islam [8].