De docta ignorantia

Motion, through which is the connection of form and matter, some opined to be a certain spirit as it were a mean between form and matter, and considered it diffused in the aplanes and in the planets and in terrestrial things. The first they called Atropos as it were without conversion, since they believed the aplanes to be moved with simple motion from east to west. The second they called Clotho, that is conversion, since the planets are moved through conversion against the aplanes from west to east. The third Lachesis, that is lot, since chance dominates terrestrial things. The motion of the planets is as the evolution of the first motion, and the motion of temporal and terrestrial things is the evolution of the motion of the planets.

In terrestrial things lurk certain causes of events as corn in seed; whence they said that those things which in the soul of the world are enfolded as it were in a globe are unfolded and extended through such motion. As if an artificer wishes to carve a statue in stone, having in himself the form of the statue as it were the idea, through certain instruments which he moves he effects the form of the statue itself in the figure of the idea and in its image, so the wise thought mind or soul of the world to bear in itself the exemplars of things and through motion to unfold them in matter; and this motion diffused through all things they called as the soul of the world; which in the aplanes, in the planets and in terrestrial things as it were fate descending in act and work from fate in substance they said to be the unfolding of fate in substance, since the thing is actually determined to being so through this such motion or spirit. This spirit of connection they said to proceed from both, namely possibility and soul of the world. For matter, since it has from the aptitude of receiving form itself a certain appetite, as the base desires the good and privation habit, and since form desires to be in act and cannot subsist absolutely, since its being is not nor is it God, descends, that it be contractedly in possibility; that is, with possibility ascending toward be in act, form descends, that it be finishing, perfecting and terminating possibility. And so from ascent and descent arises motion connecting both, which motion is the mean of connection of potency and act, since from mobile possibility and formal mover moving itself arises the mean.

This spirit, therefore, is diffused and contracted through the whole universe and its singular parts, which is called nature. Whence nature is as it were the enfolding of all things which come to be through motion. How, however, this motion is contracted from the universal even to the particular with order preserved through its degrees, is considered by this example. For while I say: God is, this speech proceeds with a certain motion, but in such order that I first utter letters, then syllables, then words, lastly speech, although hearing does not discern this order by degrees; so indeed motion descends by degrees from the universe into the particular and is there contracted in temporal or natural order. This motion or spirit, however, descends from the divine spirit, which through this motion itself moves all things. Whence as in one speaking there is a certain spirit proceeding from him who speaks, which is contracted into speech, as is preferred, so God, who is spirit, from whom descends all motion. For Truth says: It is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father who speaks in you. And so of all other motions and operations. This created spirit, therefore, is spirit, without which nothing is one or can subsist, but this whole world and all things which are in it through this spirit itself, which fills the orb of earth, naturally are connectedly that which they are, that potency through its medium be in act and act through its medium in potency. And this is the motion of the loving connection of all things to unity, that all things be one universe. For while all things are moved singularly, that they be this which they are in the better way, and none equally as another, yet the motion of anything whatever each contracts and participates in its own way mediately or immediately, as the motion of heaven the elements and elemented things, and the motion of the heart all members, that there be one universe. And through this motion things are in a certain better way in which they can be, and to this they are moved, that in themselves or in species they be conserved through the natural connection of diverse sexes, which with complicating nature moving are united and contracted divisively in individuals. There is therefore no motion simply maximal, since it coincides with rest. Hence there is no absolute motion, since the absolute is rest and God; and it enfolds all motions. As therefore all possibility is in the absolute, which is eternal God, and all form and act in absolute form, which is the Word of the Father and Son in divinity, so all motion of connection and proportion and harmonizing union is in the absolute connection of the divine Spirit, that there be one principle of all things God, in whom all things and through whom all things are in a certain unity of trinity contracted similitudinarily according to more and less within the maximum and minimum simply according to their degrees, that one be the degree of potency, act and connection of motion in intelligences, where to understand is to be moved, and another of matter, form and nexus in corporeals, where to be is to be moved, concerning which we shall touch elsewhere. And let these things concerning the trinity of the universe suffice for the present.