Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

empirical, and that from the one agent there can arise but one object (and
according to all the First was an absolutely simple unity), it became
difficult for them to explain how plurality could arise from it. This difficulty
compelled them finally to regard the First as different from the mover of
the daily circular movement; they declared that from the First, who is a
simple existent, the mover of the highest sphere proceeds, and from this
mover, since he is of a composite nature, as he is both conscious of
himself and conscious of the First, a duality, the highest sphere, and the
mover of the second sphere, the sphere under the highest can arise. This,
however, is a mistake,’ according to philosophical teaching, for thinker and
thought are one identical thing in human intellect and this is still more true
in the case of the abstract intellects. This does not affect Aristotle’s theory,
for the individual agent in the empirical world, from which there can only
proceed one single act, can only in an equivocal way be compared to the
first agent. For the first agent in the divine world is an absolute agent,
while the agent in the empirical world is a relative agent, and from the
absolute agent only an absolute act which has no special individual object
can proceed. And thereby Aristotle proves that the agent of the human
intelligibles is an intellect free from matter, since this agent thinks all
things, and in the same way he proves that the passive intellect is
ingenerable and incorruptible,s because this intellect also thinks all things.
According to the system of Aristotle the answer on this point is that
everything whose existence is only effected through a conjunction of parts,
like the conjunction of matter and form, or the conjunction of the elements
of the world, receives its existence as a consequence of this conjunction.
The bestower of this conjunction is, therefore, the bestower of existence.
And since everything conjoined is only conjoined through a unity in it, and
this unity through which it is conjoined must depend on a unity, subsistent
by itself, and be related to it, there must exist a single unity, subsistent by
itself, and this unity must of necessity provide unity through its own
essence. This unity is distributed in the different classes of existing things,
according to their natures, and from this unity, allotted to the individual
things, their existence arises; and all those unities lead upwards to the
First Monad, as warmth which exists in all the individual warm things
proceeds from primal warmth, which is fire, and leads upwards to it? By
means of this theory Aristotle connects sensible existence with intelligible,
saying that the world is one and proceeds from one, and that this Monad
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