the same time it moves bodies from place to
place, being itself previously moved from itself; for at different times
it exerts a different impulse. Does it therefore move itself from one
impulse to another? or it is moved by something else, as, for instance,
by the whole rational soul in the universe? But it would be absurd to say
that the energies of every irrational soul are not the energies of that
soul, but of one more divine; since they are infinite, and mingled with
much of the base and imperfect. For this would be just the same as to say
that the irrational enemies are the energies of the rational soul. I omit
to mention the absurdity of supposing that the whole essence is not
generative of its proper energies. For if the irrational soul is a
certain essence, it will have peculiar energies of its own, not imparted
from something else, but proceeding from itself. This irrational soul,
therefore, will also move itself at different times to different impulses.
But if it moves itself, it will be converted to itself. If, however, this
be the case, it will have a separate subsistence, and will not be in a
subject. It is therefore rational, if it looks to itself: for in being
converted to, it surveys itself. For when extended to things external, it
looks to externals, or rather it looks to colored body, but does not see
itself, because sight itself is neither body nor that which is colored.
Hence it does not revert to itself. Neither therefore is this the case
with any other irrational nature. For neither does the phantasy project a
type of itself, but of that which is sensible, as for instance of colored
body. Nor does irrational appetite desire itself, but aspires after a
certain object of desire, such as honor, or pleasure, or riches. It does
not therefore move itself.

But if some one, on seeing that brutes exert rational energies, should
apprehend that these also participate of the first self-moved, and on
this account possess a soul converted to itself, it may perhaps be
granted to him that these also are rational natures, except that they
are not so essentially, but according to participation, and this most
obscure, just as the rational soul may be said to be intellectual
according to participation, as always projecting common conceptions
without distortion. It must however be observed, that the extreme are
that which is capable of being perfectly separated, such as the rational
form, and that which is perfectly