Cause Principle Unity

Cause, principle and unity
before the actuality, nor even after it. Furthermore, the power to be accompanies
the being in act and does not come before it, for if what can exist
made itself, it would exist before being made. Consider at present the prime
and optimal principle, which is all it can be: if it could not be all, it would
not be all; therefore, in it, act and potency are the same thing. This is not
the case with other things, which, however much they are what they can
be, could possibly not exist at all, or certainly could be something else, or
be different from what they are, for nothing outside of the first principle is
all that it can be. Man is what he can be, but not all that he can be. A stone
is not all it can be, because it is not lime, nor dust, nor vase, nor grass. That
which is all that it can be is a unity, which in its being comprises every
being. Every other thing is not like that. That is why potency is not the
same as act, since act is not absolute but limited. Moreover, the potency is
always limited to a single act, because it never has more than one, specific
and particular being. And even if it aspires to every form and every act, this
is by means of certain dispositions, and following a certain succession of
beings, one after another. Hence, every potency, every act which, in the
principle, is (so to speak) enfolded, united and unique, is unfolded, dispersed
and multiplied in other things. The universe, which is the great
simulacrum, the great image and sole-begotten nature, is also all that it can
be, through the very species and principal members, and by containing the
totality of matter, to which nothing is added, nothing taken away, of complete
and unified form. But it is also not all that it can be, because of its very
differences, its particulars, its modes and its individuals. It is only a shadow
of the first act and the first potency, and, in consequence, potency and
act are not absolutely one and the same thing in it, since none of its parts is
all that it can be. Furthermore, in the specific way that we have mentioned,
the universe is all that it can be, in an unfolded, dispersed and distinct manner,
while its first principle is all it can be in a unified and undifferentiated
way, since all is there as a whole, an absolutely one and the same thing
without difference or distinction.
DICSONO. What do you say of death, corruption, vices, defects, monsters?
Do you think they also have a place in that which is all it can be and
which is in act all it is in potency?
TEOFILO. These things are neither act nor potency, but defect and
impotency found in unfolded things, because they are not all they can be
and are compelled into becoming what they can be. Hence, unable to be
many things at once, they lose one being in order to have another, and
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