In the second place, I think it is necessary that the order of the negations should be defined by those who receive theology according to the intention of Parmenides; and that it should be admitted that they proceed indeed from the monads which subsist primarily in the divine genera, and that Parmenides takes away from _the one_ all second and third natures, according to an order adapted to each. For that which transcends more principal causes must in a much greater degree subsist prior to those that are subordinate. Parmenides, however, does not begin his negations from the Gods that are united to the first: for this genus is with difficulty distinguished from _the one_: because being arranged naturally [immediately] after it, it is most unical and occult, and transcendently similar to its producing cause. Parmenides therefore beginning where prior to all other things division and multitude are apparent, and proceeding regularly through all the second orders as far as to the last of things, again returns to the beginning, and shows how _the one_ differs from the Gods that are most similar to it, and which primarily participate of it, according to one ineffable cause. In the third place, in addition to what has been said, I determine concerning the mode of negations, that they are not privative of their subjects, but generative of things which are as it were their opposites. For because the first principle is not many, the many proceed from it, and because it is not a whole, wholeness proceeds from it, and in a similar manner in other things. And in thus determining, I speak conformably to Plato, who thinks it proper to abide in negations, and to add nothing to _the one_. For whatever you add, you diminish _the one_, and afterwards evince that it is not _the one_, but that which is passive to [or participates] _the one_. For it is thus not one only, but in addition to this possesses something else also by participation. This mode therefore of negations is exempt, unical, primary, and is a departure from the whole of things, in an unknown and ineffable transcendency of simplicity. It is likewise necessary, having attributed such a mode as this to the first God, again to exempt him from the negations also. For neither does any discourse, nor any name belong to _the one_, says Parmenides. But if no discourse belongs to it, it is evident that neither does negation pertain to it. For all things are secondary to _the one_, things knowable and knowledge, and the instruments of knowledge, and after a manner that which is impossible presents itself at the end of the hypothesis. For if nothing whatever can be said of _the one_, neither is this discussion itself adapted to _the one_. Nor is it at all wonderful that the discourse of those who wish to know the ineffable by words should terminate in that which is impossible; since all knowledge when conjoined with an object of knowledge which does not at all pertain to it loses its power.