This matter is differentiated into particular things (which are not privations but perfections) through the addition of an individualizing principle (haecceitas) to the universal (quidditas).
In this all-important doctrine of the Sephiroth, the Kabbalah insists upon the fact that these potencies are not creations of the En Soph, which would be a diminution of strength; that they form among themselves and with the En Soph a strict unity, and simply represent different aspects of the same being, just as the different rays which proceed from the light, and which appear different things to the eye, are only different manifestations of one and the same light; that for this reason they all alike partake of the perfections of the En Soph; and that as emanations from the Infinite, the Sephiroth are infinite and perfect like the En Soph, and yet constitute the first finite things.
The soul's destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated.
Thus the summum bonum for man is objectively God, subjectively the happiness to be derived from loving vision of his perfections; although there is a lower kind of happiness to be realized here 1 Abelard afterwards retracted this view, at least in its extreme form; and in fact does not seem to have been fully conscious of the difference between (I) unfulfilled intention to do an act objectively right, and (2) intention to do what is merely believed by the agent to be right.
Because of God's absolute simplicity, divine attributes signify perfections that are really identical with the divine essence and with one another.