De docta ignorantia

It has been shown in what precedes that all things besides the one maximum simply are finite and terminated in respect of it. But the finite and terminated has that from which it begins and that to which it is terminated; and since it cannot be said that the one is greater than the given finite and the finite greater in proceeding always to infinity, since in things exceeding and exceeded progression to infinity cannot come about in act, therefore the maximum would be of the nature of finite things, therefore it is necessarily the maximum in act, the principle and end of all finite things. Moreover nothing could be, if the maximum simply did not exist; for since everything that is not the maximum is finite, it is also principiated; but it will be necessary that it be from another, otherwise, if it had been from itself, when it had not been, nor is it possible in principles and causes to go to infinity, as is plain from the rule.

The maximum simply will therefore be, without which nothing can be.

Moreover let us contract the maximum to being and say: nothing is opposed to maximal being, wherefore neither being nor minimal being. How then can it be understood that the maximum can not be, since to be minimally is to be maximally?

Nor can anything be understood to be without being. But absolute being cannot be other than the absolute maximum.

Nothing therefore can be understood to be without the maximum.

Moreover maximal truth is the absolute maximum. It is therefore maximally true that the maximum simply itself is or is not, or is and is not, or neither is nor is not; and more things can neither be said nor thought. Whichever of these you say, I hold the maximally true as my resolve. For I hold the maximal truth, which is the maximum simply.

Whence, although it be manifest through what was premised that this name being or any other name whatever is not the precise name of the maximum, which is above all nameable being, yet being, maximally and unnameably, through the name maximum above all nameable being, must belong to it.

By such reasonings indeed, and by infinite like ones, learned ignorance sees from what is above most openly that the maximum simply necessarily is, so that it is absolute necessity. But it has been shown that there can be but one maximum simply, wherefore that the one maximum is, is most true.