Kitap 12
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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;
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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.
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Yet it seems that knowledge and perception and opinion and understanding are always of something else, and only incidentally of themselves.
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And further, if to think is not the same as to be thought, in respect of which does goodness belong to thought? for the act of thinking and the object of thought have not the same essence. The answer is that in some cases the knowledge is the object. In the productive sciences, if we disregard the matter, the substance, i.e. the essence, is the object; but in the speculative sciences the formula or the act of thinking is the object. Therefore since thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things which contain no matter, they will be the same, and the act of thinking will be one with the object of thought.
