It is said in reply: Your expression “intellect and soul” belongs to your own terminology and must therefore be translated. Even if the words are Arabic, their meaning must still be translated.

They then say: “Intellect” is the spirit abstracted from matter—that is, the body—and its attachments. They call it an intellect, and also call it “separate.” They call such spirits “entities separate from matter” because they are separate from bodies, just as the human spirit, when it leaves the body, becomes separate from the matter that is the body. “Soul” is the spirit that governs the body, like the human soul while it is in the body. So long as it is in the body, it moves it. When it leaves the body, it becomes pure intellect: that is, it apprehends knowledge without moving any body. These, then, are the intellects and souls.

The account we have given is among the best translations of what is meant by intellect and soul, yet most of them do not grasp this.

They say: We have established a soul for every celestial sphere because its motion is voluntary, and voluntary motion can only proceed from a soul. We have also established an intellect for every soul because the intellect is perfect and has no need of motion, whereas that which moves seeks perfection. There must therefore be something above it on which it is modeled, and something that is its cause.

Thus, our souls move in order to emulate the intellects above us. All of this is an emulation of the Being whose existence is necessary, insofar as this is possible. Only an intellect emanates from the First, because a soul entails a body, and a body contains