  The procession of creatures in the order of conceptional reality moves through three modes of being (specific character, ideal form, and image) culminating in beings that are specific in character, and are images, but without the proper character of individuation. These are the intelligences. They proceed from God as an image of God and constitute the very flower of the universe. The agent intellect of man, Dietrich tells us, belongs to this mode of being. The various modes of being within the entire hierarchy of being as well as the three kinds of beings subordinate to the first being all bear a likeness to God; indeed, intellect, the very apex of the universe, is an image of God.  But the various members of Dietrich’s hierarchy of being are also bound together into a universe of beings by the similitude they bear to each other. This similitude, however, is the result of the essential order of causation, according to which every being in the universe of beings is ordered to every other being either as cause or effect. Thus the totality of beings are bound together making up a universe where every creature bears a relation of similitude to every other creature and to the primary unifying principle from which they emanate, God.