Cause Principle Unity

Fifth dialogue
TEOFILO. The decade is a unity in the same way, but it is complex; the
hundred is no less a unity, but it is more complex, and the thousand is a
unity no less than the other two, but much more complex. And what I tell
you in arithmetical terms, you must understand in the sense of a greater
depth and a greater simplicity as regards the totality of things. The
supreme good, the supreme object of desire, the supreme perfection, the
supreme beatitude consists in the unity which embraces the whole. We
delight in colour; not in a single, express colour, whatever it may be, but
above all in the colour which embraces all colours. We delight in sound, not
in any particular one, but in a complex sound which results from the harmony
of many sounds. We delight in a sensible thing, but we take greatest
delight in that which comprehends, in itself, all sensible things; similarly,
we take delight in a knowable thing that comprehends all knowable things,
an apprehensible thing that embraces all that can be apprehended, a being
that embraces everything; we delight, above all, in the one which is itself
the all. Just as you, Poliinnio, would prefer the unity of a gem so precious
as to be worth all the gold in the world, to the multitude of thousands upon
thousands of such pennies as the one you have in your purse.
POLIINNIO. Optime [Excellent].
GERVASIO. Here I am grown learned. For if the man who does not
understand the one understands nothing, he who really understands the
one understands everything. And the closer one gets to the intelligence of
the one, the closer one comes to the apprehension of everything.
DICSONO. The same goes for me. If I have understood rightly, I am
going away much enriched by the considerations of Teofilo, reliable
reporter of the Nolan philosophy.
TEOFILO. Praised be the gods, and may all living things magnify the
infinite, perfectly simple, unique, highest and absolute cause, principle and
unity.
End of the five dialogues
on Cause, Principle, and Unity
101