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<strong>Cause</strong>, principle and unity<br />
breadth and depth in the sphere are identical, because they have the same<br />
limit, but in the universe, length, breadth and depth are identical because<br />
they are all equally without limit and infinite. If they have no half, quarter<br />
or other fraction, if there are no fractions at all, then there is no measurable<br />
part, nor, strictly, any part that differs from the whole. For, if you wish to<br />
speak of part of the infinite, you are obliged to call that infinite as well; if it<br />
is infinite, it coincides in one and the same being with the whole: therefore,<br />
the universe is one, infinite, indivisible. And if in the infinite you cannot<br />
find any difference as of part from whole, nor any difference as of one part<br />
from another, the infinite is undoubtedly one. There is no smaller part and<br />
greater part within the infinite’s comprehension, for any part, however<br />
large, comes no nearer the proportion of the infinite than does any other,<br />
however small. In infinite duration, an hour is no different from a day, a day<br />
from a year, a year from a century, a century from an instant, because neither<br />
moments nor hours exist any more than do centuries, and because<br />
none is more commensurable with eternity than another. Similarly, in the<br />
immensity, the palm is not different from the stadium 1 , nor the stadium<br />
from the parasang 2 , because the parasang is no nearer the immensity’s proportions<br />
than is the stadium. Hence, there are no more infinite hours than<br />
there are infinite centuries, nor infinite palms in greater number than<br />
infinite parasangs. You come no nearer to commensurability, likeness,<br />
union and identity with the infinite by being a man than by being an ant,<br />
or by being a star than by being a man, for you get no nearer to that infinite<br />
being by being the sun or the moon than by being a man, or an ant. This is<br />
because, in the infinite, there is no difference between those things – and<br />
what I say of them applies just as well to all other existent particular things.<br />
Now, if, in the infinite, all these particular things are not differentiated,<br />
are not divided into species, it necessarily follows that they have no number:<br />
the universe, therefore, is one and immobile. Because it comprises<br />
everything, does not take on one being after another, and suffers no change<br />
neither by nor in itself, it is, consequently, all that it can be, and in it (as I<br />
said the other day), act does not differ from potency. If potency does not<br />
differ from act, it is necessary that, in the infinite, the point, the line, the<br />
surface and the body do not differ. For there, the line is surface because, by<br />
moving, it may become surface, and there the surface moves and becomes<br />
body, insofar as it may move and become, by its flow, a body. In the infinite,<br />
therefore, the point necessarily does not differ from the body, for, from its<br />
1 See note 3 on p. 10 above. 2 See note 3 on p. 10 above.<br />
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