Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1 In Chronological Order,...

But besides this intelligible (entity, namely, intelligence), there is another (higher) intelligible (the supreme Intelligible, the First). In what way does the intelligence, thus determined, proceed from the (First) Intelligible? The Intelligible abides in itself, and has need of nothing else, while there is a need of something else in that which sees and thinks (that is, that which thinks has need of contemplating the supreme Intelligible). But even while remaining within Himself, the Intelligible (One) is not devoid of sentiment; all things belong to Him, are in Him, and with Him. Consequently, He has the conception of Himself, a conception which implies consciousness, and which consists in eternal repose, and in a thought, but in a thought different from that of intelligence. If He begets something while remaining within Himself, He begets it precisely when He is at the highest point of individuality. It is therefore by remaining in His own state that He begets what He begets; He procreates by individualizing. Now as He remains intelligible, what He begets cannot be anything else than thought; therefore thought, by existing, and by thinking the Principle whence it is derived (for it could not think any other object), becomes simultaneously intelligence and intelligible; but this second intelligible differs from the first Intelligible from which it proceeds, and of which it is but the image and the reflection.