De docta ignorantia

All the wise agree in this, that posse-be cannot be led to be in act except through be in act; since nothing can lead itself to be in act, lest it be cause of itself; they said that which makes possibility to be in act acts from intention, that by reasonable ordination possibility come to be in act and not by chance. This lofty nature some named mind, some soul of the world, some fate in substance, some, as the Platonists, necessity of complexion, who esteemed possibility to be determined by necessity through itself, that it be now in act what before it could be in nature. For in that mind they said the forms of things to be intelligibly in act, as in matter possibly; and that necessity of complexion itself, having in itself the truth of forms, with those which accompany them, would move the heaven according to the order of nature, that through the medium of motion as an instrument it lead possibility to act and, as conformably as could be, adequated to the intelligible concept of truth, conceding the form, as it is in matter, through this operation of mind, through the medium of motion, to be the image of the true intelligible form, though not true, but verisimilar. And so the Platonists said true forms to be prior not in time, but in nature, in the soul of the world than in things. Which the Peripatetics do not concede, since they say forms to have no other being except in matter and through abstraction in the intellect, which follows the thing, as is clear. It pleased the Platonists that such distinct exemplars in necessity of complexion be many with natural order from one infinite reason, in which all things are one, yet they did not believe those exemplars to be created by it, but so to descend that it was never true to say: God is, but it would also be true: the soul of the world is, affirming it to be the unfolding of the divine mind, that all things which in God are one exemplar be in the soul of the world many and distinct; adding that God naturally precedes this necessity of complexion and the soul of the world itself naturally precedes motion and the instrument of temporal unfolding of things, so that those things which would be would be truly in soul, possibly in matter, temporally unfolded through motion. Which temporal unfolding indeed follows the natural order, which is in the soul of the world and is called fate in substance; and its temporal unfolding is fate descending from it, named in act and work by most. And so the mode of being in the soul of the world is that according to which we say the intelligible world. The mode of being in act through determination of possibility, that is through unfolding, as has now been said, is the mode of being according to which the world is sensible according to them. Nor did they wish those forms, as they are in matter, to be other than themselves which are in the soul of the world, but to differ only according to mode of being, as in the soul of the world truly and in themselves, in matter verisimilarly, not in their purity, but with adumbration; adding that the truth of forms is attained only through intellect; through reason, imagination and sense only according to images, as forms are mixed with possibility; and that therefore we do not truly attain anything, but opinatively. From this soul of the world they thought all motion to descend, which they said to be whole in the whole and in any part whatever of the world, although it does not exercise the same powers in all parts; as the rational soul in man does not exercise the same operation in the hairs and in the heart, although it be whole in the whole and in any part whatever. Whence they wished all souls to be enfolded in it, whether in bodies or outside, since they said it to be diffused through the whole universe, not through parts, since simple and impartible, but whole in earth, where it connects earth, whole in stone, where it works tenacity of parts, whole in water, whole in trees, and so of singulars. Since it is itself the first circular unfolding with the divine mind holding itself as the central point, and the soul of the world as the circle unfolding the center, and the natural enfolding of every temporal order of things, therefore they called it for discretion and order number moving itself and affirmed it to be from the same and the diverse; which they also thought to differ from the soul of man by number alone, that as the soul of man holds itself to man, so it to the universe, believing all souls to be resolved from it and into it finally, if demerits did not hinder.

Many Christians assented to that Platonic way, from this especially, since the reason of stone is one, of man another, and in God distinction and otherness does not fall, they thought it necessary that these distinct reasons, according to which things are distinct, be after God and before things, since reason precedes the thing; and this in the intelligence ruling the orbs; and that such distinct reasons or notions themselves be never destructible things in the soul of the world itself. Indeed they wished the soul itself to be from all notions of all things, so that all notions in it be its substance, although they assert this difficult to say and to know. This indeed they fortify by authority of divine Scripture. For God said: let light be and light was made. For if the truth of light had not naturally been before, how would he have said: let light be? After, however, that light was temporally unfolded, which would rather have been called light than anything else, if the truth of light had not been before? And many like things such bring for fortification of this.

The Peripatetics, however, although they confess the work of nature to be the work of intelligence, yet do not admit those exemplars; whom certainly, unless by intelligence they understand God, I think to fail. For if there is no knowledge in intelligence, how does it move according to purpose? If there is knowledge of the thing to be temporally unfolded, which is the reason of motion, such could not be abstracted from the thing which is not yet temporally. If therefore there is knowledge without abstraction, certainly then it is that of which the Platonists speak, which is not from things, but things according to it. Whence the Platonists did not wish such reasons of things to be something distinct and diverse from intelligence itself, but rather that such distinct among themselves effect a certain one simple intelligence, enfolding in itself all reasons; that, although the reason of man be not the reason of stone, but they be distinct reasons, yet humanity itself, from which man descends, as white from whiteness, has no other being than in intelligibility itself according to the nature of intelligence intelligibly, and in the thing itself really; not that there be one humanity of Plato and another separate, but the same according to diverse modes of being, existing prior naturally in intelligence than in matter, not prior in time, but as reason precedes the thing in nature.

Acutely enough and reasonably the Platonists spoke, perhaps unreasonably reprehended by Aristotle, who strove to refute them as known in the bark of words than in medullary understanding. But what be truer, we shall elicit through learned ignorance. For it has been shown that one does not arrive at the maximum simply, and so there cannot be either absolute potency or absolute form or act which be not God, and that there be no being besides God uncontracted, and that there be only one form of forms and truth of truths, and there is no other maximal truth of circle and of square. Whence the forms of things are not distinct, except as they are contracted; as they are absolute, they are one indistinct, which is the Word in divinity. The soul of the world, therefore, has no being except with possibility, through which it is contracted, and is not mind separate from things or separable. For if we consider of mind as it is separate from possibility, it is itself the divine mind, which alone is wholly in act. It is therefore not possible that there be many distinct exemplates; for anything whatever to its exemplates would be maximal and most true; but this is not possible, that there be many maxima and most true; for one infinite exemplar alone is sufficient and necessary, in which all things are as ordered in order, most adequatedly enfolding all however distinct reasons; so that infinite reason itself is the truest reason of the circle and not greater nor less nor diverse or other; and itself is the reason of the square, not greater nor less, nor diverse; and so of the rest, as can be comprehended from the example of the infinite line. We, however, seeing diversities of things, marvel how the one most simple reason of all is also of singulars, which yet we know to be necessary from learned ignorance, which shows diversity in God to be identity. For in this, that we see the diversity of reasons of all things to be most truly, then in this, that this is most true, we apprehend the one most true of all reasons, which is maximal truth itself. When therefore it is said that God created man by one reason, stone by another, it is true having respect to things, not to the creator, as in numbers we see: the ternary is the most simple reason, receiving neither more nor less, in itself one; but as it is referred to diverse things, according to this another reason exists. For another is the reason of the ternary of triangles in triangle, another of matter, form and composite in substance, another of father, mother and son, or of three men and three asses. Whence necessity of complexion is not, as the Platonists posited, a mind less than the begetter, but is the Word and Son equal to the Father in divinity, and is called logos or reason, since it is the reason of all things. Nothing, therefore, is that which the Platonists said concerning imaginations of forms, since there is only one infinite form of forms, whose images all forms are, as above in a certain place we said.

These things, therefore, must be acutely understood, since the soul of the world is to be considered as it were a certain universal form enfolding in itself all forms, yet not existing in act except contractedly in things, which in anything whatever is the contracted form of the thing, as was said above concerning the universe. God, therefore, is efficient and final and formal cause of all things, who effects in one Word all things however diverse among themselves; and there can be no creature which be not from contraction diminished from this divine work by infinity falling. God alone is absolute, all other things contracted. Nor does a mean fall in this way between absolute and contracted, as those imagined who thought the soul of the world a mind after God and before contraction of the world. For God alone is soul and mind of the world in that way in which soul is considered as it were something absolute, in which all forms of things are in act. The philosophers indeed were not instructed concerning the divine Word and the maximally absolute sufficient; therefore they considered mind and soul and necessity in a certain unfolding of absolute necessity without contraction. Forms, therefore, are not in act except in the Word the Word itself and in things contracted. The forms, however, which are in created intellectual nature, although according to intellectual nature they be more absolute, yet are not without contraction, as is intellect, whose operation is to understand through abstractive likeness, as Aristotle says, concerning which some things in the book On Conjectures. And let these things said concerning the soul of the world suffice.