Cause Principle Unity

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