  This circle, in other words, begins with the divine, whose love creates and sustains the universe: “each degree of being with paternal love procreates its immediate inferior, imparting its being or paternal beauty to it, although in a lesser degree as is only  fitting.”[51]  This emanative framework, the love of that which is more beautiful for that which is less beautiful, comprises the first half of the circle. Every thing in the universe exists on a hierarchical chain of being, from the pure actuality of the divine to the pure potentiality of prime matter. Just as the superior desires the perfection of the inferior, the inferior desires to unite with the superior. The first half of the circle spans from God to utter chaos, whereas, the second half of this circle works in reverse.  It is the love of the inferior for the superior, predicated on the former’s privation and subsequent desire to unite with the superior.