e; and according to this is both other things, and
that which is indigent. For how is it possible, it should not be indigent
also so far as it is the one? Just as it is all other things which proceed
from it. For the indigent also is, something belonging to all things.
Something else, therefore, must be investigated which in no respect has any
kind of indigence. But of a thing of this kind it cannot with truth be
asserted that it is the principle, nor can it even be said of it that it is
most unindigent, though this appears to be the most venerable of all
assertions.[4]

---------------
[4] See the extracts from Damascius in the additional notes to the third
volume, which contain an inestimable treasury of the most profound
conceptions concerning the ineffable.
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For this signifies transcendency, and an exemption from the indigent. We do
not, however, think it proper to call this even the perfectly exempt; but
that which is in every respect incapable of being apprehended, and about
which we must be perfectly silent, will be the most, just axiom of our
conception in the present investigation; nor yet this as uttering any
thing, but as rejoicing in not uttering, and by this venerating that
immense unknown. This then is the mode of ascent to that which is called
the first, or rather to that which is beyond every thing which can be
conceived, or become the subject of hypothesis.

There is also another mode, which does not place the unindigent before
the indigent, but considers that which is indigent of a more excellent
nature, as subsisting secondary to that which is more excellent. Every
where then, that which is in capacity is secondary to that which is in
energy. For that it may proceed into energy, and that it may not remain
in capacity in vain, it requires that which is in energy. For the more
excellent never blossoms from the subordinate nature. Let this then be
defined by us according to common unperverted conceptions. Matter
therefore has prior to itself material form; because all matter is form
in capacity, whether it be the first matter which is perfectly formless,
or the second which subsists according to body void of quality, or in
other words mere triple extension, to which it is likely those directed
their attention who first investigated sensibles, and which at first
appeared to be the only thing that had a subsistence. For the existence
of that which is common in the different elements,