Kitap 12
3
Surely it would be absurd for it to think about some subjects. Clearly, then, it thinks that which is most divine and estimable, and does not change; for the change would be for the worse, and anything of this kind would immediately imply some sort of motion. Therefore if Mind is not thinking but a potentiality, (a) it is reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is laboriousCf. Aristot. Met. 9.8.18.; (b) clearly there must be something else which is more excellent than Mind; i.e. the object of thought;
4
for both thought and the act of thinking will belong even to the thinker of the worst thoughts.If Mind is a potentiality, since a potentiality is of contraries, Mind may think that which is worst. Therefore if this is to be avoided (as it is, since it is better not to see some things than to see them), thinking cannot be the supreme good. Therefore Mind thinks itself, if it is that which is best; and its thinking is a thinking of thinking.
4
Yet it seems that knowledge and perception and opinion and understanding are always of something else, and only incidentally of themselves.
