De docta ignorantia

If you attend to what was said before, it will not be difficult for you to see a foundation of that Anaxagorean truth that each thing is in each thing, perhaps higher than Anaxagoras. For, since it is manifest from the first book that God is so in all things that all things are in him, and it is now established that God is in all things as it were through the medium of the universe, hence it is established that all things are in all things and each thing in each thing: for the universe as it were in the order of nature, as most perfect, preceded all things, that each thing could be in each thing. For in any creature whatever the universe is the creature itself, and so each thing receives all things, that in it they be itself contractedly; since each thing cannot actually be all things, since it is contracted, it contracts all things, that they be itself. If therefore all things are in all things, all things seem to precede each thing. All things, therefore, are not many, since plurality does not precede each thing. Whence all things without plurality preceded each thing in the order of nature; in each thing, therefore, there are not many in act, but all things without plurality are itself.

The universe, however, is only contractedly in things, and every actually existing thing contracts universals, that it be actually that which it is. Every actually existing thing, however, is in God, since he is the act of all things. Act, however, is the perfection and end of potency. Whence, since the universe in any actually existing thing is contracted, it is clear that God, who is in the universe, is in each thing, and each actually existing thing immediately in God, as the universe. To say each thing is in each thing, therefore, is nothing other than that God through all things is in all things and all things through all things are in God.

These things are most clearly comprehended by a subtle intellect in the highest way: how God is without diversity in all things, since each thing is in each thing, and all things in God, since all things are in all things. But, since the universe is so in each thing that each thing is in it, and the universe is in each thing contractedly that which it is contractedly itself, and each thing in the universe is the universe itself, although the universe is in each thing diversely and each thing in the universe diversely. See an example: it is manifest that the infinite line is line, triangle, circle and sphere. Every finite line, however, has its being from the infinite, which is all that it is. Hence in the finite line all that which is is the infinite line; but as it is line, triangular, circular, spherical, it is the finite line. Every figure, therefore, in the finite line is the line itself; and there is not in it either triangular or circular or sphere in act, since from many in act one in act is not made, since each thing in act is not in each thing, but the triangle in the line is line, and the circle in the line is line, and so of the rest. And, that you may see more clearly, a line cannot be in act except in a body, as will be shown elsewhere. In a body, however, long, wide and deep, no one doubts that all figures are unfolded. In the line in act, therefore, are all figures in act the line itself, and in the triangle triangle, and so of the rest. For all things in stone are stone, and in the vegetative soul the soul itself, and in life life, and in sense sense, in sight sight, in hearing hearing, in image imagination, in reason reason, in intellect intellect, in God God.

— And now see how the unity of things or the universe is in plurality and conversely plurality in unity. Consider more attentively, and you will see how any actually existing thing rests from this, since all things in it are itself and itself in God is God. A marvelous unity of things, an admirable equality, and a most marvelous connection you see, that all things be in all things. The diversity of things too and their connection you understand to arise in this. For, since any thing in act could not be all things, since it would have been God, and therefore all things were in each thing in that mode in which they could be according to that which each thing is, nor could each thing be wholly like another through all things, as was clear above, it made all things to be in diverse degrees; as also that being which could not at once be incorruptibly, it made to be incorruptibly in temporal succession; that thus all things be that which they are, since otherwise and better they could not be.

All things therefore rest in each thing, since one degree could not be without another, as in the members of the body each confers to each, and all things are contained in all things. For after the eye cannot be hand and feet and all other things in act, it is content to be eye, and the foot foot, and all members confer mutually to one another, that each be in the better mode in which it can that which it is, and the hand is not hand nor the foot foot in the eye, but in the eye they are eye, inasmuch as the eye itself is immediately in man; and so all members in the foot, inasmuch as the foot is immediately in man, so that each member through each be immediately in man, and man, or the whole, through each member be in each, as the whole is in the parts through each in each. If therefore you consider humanity as it were something absolute, unmixable and incontractible, and consider man, in whom absolute humanity itself is absolutely, and from whom is contracted humanity itself, which is man, absolute humanity itself is as it were God, and contracted as it were the universe. And as absolute humanity itself is in man principally or priorly and consequently in any member or any part whatever, and contracted humanity itself is in the eye eye, in the heart heart, and so of the rest, and so contractedly in each thing each thing, then according to this position indeed is found the likeness of God and the world, and the guidance of them all, which in these two chapters have been touched, with many others which follow from this.