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Fifth dialogue<br />
status as point, it becomes a line; from its status as line, it becomes a surface;<br />
from its status as surface, it becomes a body. So the point, because it<br />
possesses the potency to become a body, does not differ from the status of<br />
a body, where the potency and the act are one and the same thing.<br />
The undivided does not differ, therefore, from the divided, nor does the<br />
absolutely simple differ from the infinite, nor does the centre differ from<br />
the circumference. Since the infinite is all that it can be, it is immobile;<br />
since in it everything is indifferent, it is one; and since it possesses all the<br />
greatness and perfection that can possibly be possessed, beyond all limit,<br />
it is the maximum and supreme immensity. If the point does not differ from<br />
the body, nor the centre from the circumference, nor the finite from the<br />
infinite, nor the maximum from the minimum, we may certainly affirm that<br />
the universe is entirely centre, or that the centre of the universe is everywhere,<br />
and the circumference nowhere insofar as it is different from the<br />
centre; or else that the circumference is everywhere, but the centre is<br />
nowhere insofar as it differs from the circumference. Here, then, is how it<br />
is not impossible, but rather necessary, that the optimum, the maximum,<br />
the incomprehensible is everything, is everywhere, is in everything, for,<br />
being simple and indivisible, it can be everything, be everywhere and be<br />
in everything. Thus, not for nothing is it said that Jove fills all things,<br />
inhabits all parts of the universe, is the centre of everything which has<br />
being: one in all, and that through which all is one, and is that which, being<br />
all things and comprehending all being in itself, causes everything to be in<br />
everything.<br />
But you will say to me, ‘Then why do things change? Why does particular<br />
matter turn itself into other forms?’ My answer is that mutation is not<br />
striving for another being, but for another mode of being. And this is the<br />
difference between the universe and the things of the universe: for the<br />
universe contains all being and all modes of being, while each thing of the<br />
universe possesses all being but not all modes of being. Each thing cannot<br />
possess, in act, all particularities and accidents, because many forms are<br />
incompatible within the same subject, either because they are contrary or<br />
because they belong to different species – for example, there cannot be the<br />
same individual substance under the accidents of a horse and a human<br />
being, or under the dimensions of a plant or an animal. What is more, the<br />
universe comprehends all being totally, for nothing can exist outside of or<br />
beyond infinite being, because there is no outside or beyond infinity. By<br />
contrast, each of the things of the universe comprehends all being, but not<br />
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