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