Cause Principle Unity

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<strong>Cause</strong>, principle and unity of being a constitutive cause of corporeal nature, the fact of being the substratum of all sorts of transformations, and the fact of being a part of composites, agrees with matter in its proper essence. For the same matter (or, to put it more clearly), the same that can be made, or that can exist, is either made, and it exists through the dimensions and extension of the substratum and the qualities that have their existence in quantity – and this is called corporeal substance and presupposes a corporeal matter – or else it is made (supposing that its being has an inception) and is without those dimensions, extensions and qualities, and it is called incorporeal substance, and similarly presupposes the above mentioned matter. Thus, to an active potency, in the case of both corporeal and incorporeal things – that is, to both corporeal and incorporeal beings – there corresponds a passive potency, which is both corporeal and incorporeal, and a possibility of being which is both corporeal and incorporeal. If, then, we wish to speak of composition in the one nature as much as in the other, we must understand it in two different senses. We must also consider that, in eternal things, we speak of matter which is always under the same act, while in variable things, matter contains now one, now another act. With the former case, matter possesses, at once, always and together, all it can possess, and is all it can be; with the latter case, it has all it can possess and is all it can be, but at different times and according to a certain order of succession. DICSONO. Some, though they admit matter in incorporeal things, understand it in a very different sense. TEOFILO. However different their particular natures are, through which one thing descends to corporeal being and the other does not, and one thing receives sensible qualities and the other not, and however impossible it seems that there can be an essence common to, on the one hand, that matter which is incompatible with quantity and with the fact of being the substratum of qualities which have their existence in dimensions, and, on the other hand, that matter which is neither incompatible with the one nor with the other, nevertheless, they are one and the same thing, and the whole difference (as has been said many times) depends on the contraction of matter into corporeal being or incorporeal being. Similarly, in the animal being, all beings endowed with sense are one, but if we contract the genus to a particular species, the essence of a man is incompatible with that of a lion, and that of the lion with another animal. To this I add, if you please (since you might say that what is never found must be considered impossible, and unnatural rather than natural), that, primary matter never 78
Fourth dialogue acquiring dimensions, one must consider corporeal matter as contrary to its nature, and that if this is so, it would not be likely that the two sorts of matter should have a common nature before one of them is conceived as being contracted to corporeal matter. I add, as I was saying, that we can just as well attribute to that first matter the necessity of having all dimensional acts, than (as you would have it) their impossibility. Since this matter is, in act, all that it can be, it has all measures and has all species of figures and dimensions. Because it has them all, it has none of them, since what is so many different things is necessarily none of them in particular. What is everything must exclude all particular being. DICSONO. Do you claim, then, that matter is act? Do you also claim that matter in incorporeal things coincides with act? TEOFILO. Yes, as the possibility to be coincides with being. DICSONO. Then, it does not differ from form? TEOFILO. It does not differ at all in the absolute potency and absolute act, and, because it is absolutely all, is therefore absolutely pure, simple, indivisible and unified. If it possessed definite dimensions, a definite being, a definite property and a definite individuality, it would not be absolute, nor would it be all. DICSONO. Then, everything which comprises all the genuses is indivisible? TEOFILO. Exactly, because the form which comprises all the qualities is itself none of them; that which comprises all figures does not itself possess any; that which possesses all sensible being is not, for that reason, accessible to the senses. That which possesses all natural being is highly indivisible; that which possesses all intellectual being is still more highly indivisible; that which possesses all that can be is the most highly indivisible of all. DICSONO. You hold that there exists a ladder of the possibility to be, like the ladder of being? And you hold that material nature ascends along the one just as formal nature ascends along the other? TEOFILO. That is true. DICSONO. You give a lofty and profound definition of matter and potency. TEOFILO. True again. DICSONO. But this truth will not be grasped by everyone, for it is indeed hard to understand how it is possible to possess all the species of dimensions without having any, and to possess all formal being, and yet no form. 79
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CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF P
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Introduction Giordano Bruno was bor
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Introduction existence of such a sp
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Introduction metaphysics which is i
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Introduction traditional cosmology.
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Introduction it be contracted, as i
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Introduction these are only appeara
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Introduction substance, which Bruno
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Introduction nature of his presence
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Introduction All this throws light
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Introduction (whose link with our i
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Introduction servitude of their own
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Introduction constituent moments, o
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Chronology his Italian dialogues, L
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Chronology 21 December, he said he
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Further reading Heroic Frenzies, tr
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Cause, Principle and Unity
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Cause, principle and unity gainsayi
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Cause, principle and unity so that
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Cause, principle and unity however,
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Cause, principle and unity permanen
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Cause, principle and unity and gloo
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Cause, principle and unity when you
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Cause, principle and unity you in w
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Cause, principle and unity and subl
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Cause, principle and unity FILOTEO.
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Cause, principle and unity FILOTEO.
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Cause, principle and unity instead
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Cause, principle and unity most par
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Page 141: On Magic
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On magic are expelled and replaced
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On magic Let us now turn our attent
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On magic On the bondings of spirits
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On magic is due sometimes to the la
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On magic Further, one should note t
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On magic disturbed by things which
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On magic readily to where the seed
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On magic Thus, someone who is less
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A general account of bonding Anyone
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A general account of bonding and fo
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A general account of bonding 12. No
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A general account of bonding the mo
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A general account of bonding person
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he does not move unless he is attra
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A general account of bonding 2. The
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A general account of bonding such a
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A general account of bonding in old
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A general account of bonding it tha
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A general account of bonding bound
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A general account of bonding adoles
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A general account of bonding to foo
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A general account of bonding Mercur
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A general account of bonding chaos
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A general account of bonding beauty
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Index accident and substance 6, 9,
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Index measurement 169 motion 158-9
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Index ubiquitous 49-50 see also div
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Index doctorates 26-7 natural viii-
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Index world-soul (anima mundi) xi-x
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Cause Principle Unity

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