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

in the forms of the sensible existents; the lowest is their existence in
matters, then their existence in the human intellect is superior to their
existence in matters, and their existence in the separate intellects is still
superior to their existence in the human intellect. Then again they have in
the separate intellects different degrees of superiority of existence,
according to the different degrees of superiority in these intellects in
themselves.
And again when they investigated the body of the heavens they found
that in reality it is one unique body similar to one single animal, and that it
has one general movement-which is like the general movement of the
animal which moves the whole body of the animal -namely, the daily
movement, and they found that the other heavenly bodies and their
individual movements were similar to the particular members of a single
animal and its particular movements. And they believed, because of this
connexion between these bodies, their referring to one body and to one
end, and their collaboration in one act-namely, the world in its totality-that
they depended on one principle, as happens to different arts which aim at
one product and which depend on one primary art. For this reason they
believed that these abstract principles depend on a unique abstract
principle which is the cause of all of them, that the forms and the order
and arrangement in this principle are the noblest existence which the
forms, the order, and the arrangement in all reality can possess, that this
order and arrangement are the cause of all the orders and arrangements
in this sublunary world, and that the intellects reach their different degrees
of superiority in this, according to their lesser or greater distance from this
principle. The First amongst all these principles thinks only its own
essence and, by thinking its essence, thinks at the same time all existents
in the noblest mode of existence and in the noblest order and
arrangement. The substance of everything under the First Principle
depends on the way in which it thinks the forms, order, and arrangement
which exist in the First Intellect; and their greater or lesser superiority
consists only in this. They conclude therefore that the inferior cannot think
the superior in the way the superior thinks its own essence, nor does the
superior think the inferior in the way the inferior thinks its own essence;
this means that no one of any pair of existents can be of the same rank as
its fellow, since if this were possible they would have become one and
would not form a numerical plurality. Because of this they say that the First
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