Cause Principle Unity

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