De docta ignorantia

Beyond all intellect we have found in the earlier chapters the universe or world to be one, whose unity is contracted through plurality, that it be unity in plurality. And since absolute unity is first, and the unity of the universe is from it, the unity of the universe will be the second unity, which consists in a certain plurality. And since, as will be shown in On Conjectures, the second unity is denary, uniting the ten predicaments, the universe will be one unfolding the first absolute simple unity by denary contraction. All things, however, are enfolded in the decad, since there is no number above it. Hence the unity of the universe enfolds the contracted plurality of all things denarily. And since that unity of the universe as the contracted principle of all things is in all things, then, as ten is the square root of a hundred and the cubic root of a thousand, so the unity of the universe is the root of universals. From which root first arises as it were the number of squares, as the third unity, and the cubic number arises, as the last or fourth unity. And the first unfolding of the unity of the universe is the third unity, centenary; and the last unfolding the fourth unity, millenary.

And so we find three universal unities descending by degrees to the particular, in which they are contracted, that they be actually itself. The first absolute unity enfolds all things absolutely, the first contracted all things contractedly; but the order has it that the absolute unity be seen as it were to enfold the first contracted, that through its medium all others; and the first contracted to enfold the second contracted, and through its medium the third contracted; and the second contracted the third contracted, which is the last universal unity, and the fourth from the first, that through its medium it come into the particular. And so we see how the universe is contracted through three degrees in any particular whatever.

The universe, therefore, is as it were the universality of the ten most general, and then genera, then species, and so universal things are those according to their degrees, which in a certain order of nature exist by degrees before the thing which contracts them in act. And since the universe is contracted, then it is found only unfolded in genera, and genera are found only in species; individuals are in act, in which universals are contracted, and in this consideration it is seen how universals are only contractedly in act.

And in this way indeed the Peripatetics speak truly that universals are not in act outside things. For only the singular is in act, in which universals are contractedly itself. Universals, however, have in the order of nature a certain universal contractible being through the singular, not that they be in act before contraction otherwise than in natural order, as the contractible into the non-subsistent, but into that which is in act; as point, line, surface, in progressive order, precede body, in which alone they are in act. For the universe, since it is in act only contractedly, is therefore only a being of reason; so universals are not only beings of reason, although they are not found outside singulars in act; as line and surface, although they are not found outside body, are therefore not beings of reason only, since they are in body, as universals in singulars. The intellect, however, makes them to be outside things through abstraction. Which abstraction indeed is a being of reason, since absolute being cannot befit them. For the wholly absolute universal is God. How, however, the universal is in the intellect, we shall see in the book of Conjectures; — although from the above this can be clear enough, since they are there only intellect, and so contractedly intellectually; whose understanding, since it is not clearer and higher being, apprehends the contraction of universals in itself and in others. For dog and other animals of the same species are united on account of the common specific nature which is in them, which would be contracted in them too, if Plato's intellect did not fabricate for itself species from comparison of likenesses.

It follows therefore that to understand is being and living as regards its operation, since through its operation neither can the intellect itself give being nor living nor understanding, that it follows being and living and understanding of nature in likeness to the things understood. Hence the universals which it makes from comparison are the likeness of the universals contracted in things; which universals in the intellect itself are already contractedly, before it unfolds them outwardly by those notes through understanding, which is its operating. For it can understand nothing which is not already in it contractedly itself. By understanding, therefore, a certain similitudinary world, which is in it contractedly, is unfolded by similitudinary notes and signs.

Concerning the unity, therefore, and contraction of the universe in things enough has been said in this place; further let us subjoin concerning its trinity.