44. Divine love and wisdom are substance and form in and of themselves, and are therefore wholly "itself" and unique. I have just given evidence that divine love and wisdom is substance and form, and I have also said that the divine reality and its manifestation is reality and manifestation in and of itself. We cannot say that it is reality and manifestation derived from itself, because that would involve a beginning, a beginning from something else that had within it some intrinsic reality and manifestation; while true reality and its manifestation in and of itself exists from eternity. Then too, true reality and manifestation in and of itself is uncreated; and nothing that has been created can exist except from something uncreated. What is created is also finite; and what is finite can arise only from what is infinite.

195. The first level is the sum and substance of all the levels. This is because the levels of every subject and every object are matched in kind, and they are matched in kind because they have been produced by the first level. The way they are formed is that the first level produces a second by folding together or congregating--in short, by gathering; and through this second level, it produces a third. Further, it marks each level off from the other by a surrounding membrane. We can see from this that the first level is in primary and sole control of the subsequent ones, and that in fact the first level is the sum and substance of all the levels.