[W] Ch'il coperto terren natura aborre.
Both these evils being infinite, like two equally vigorous opposites
they curb and suppress each other: it could not be so if they were both
finite, seeing that a precise equality does not belong to natural
things, nor would it be so if the one were finite, the other infinite;
for of a certainty the one would absorb the other, and they would both
be seen, or, at least one, through the other. Beneath these sentences,
there lies hidden, ethical and natural philosophy, and I leave it to be
searched for, meditated upon and understood, by whosoever will and can.
This alone I will not leave (unsaid) that it is not without reason that
the affection of the heart is said to be the infinite sea by the
apprehension of the eyes.[X] For the object of the mind being infinite,
and no definite object being proposed to the intellect, the will cannot
be satisfied by a finite good, but if besides that, something else is
found, it is desired and sought for; for, as is commonly said, the apex
of the inferior species is the beginning of the superior species,
whether the degrees are taken according to the forms, the which we
cannot consider as being infinite, or according to the modes and reasons
of those, in which way, the highest good being infinite, it would be
supposed to be infinitely communicated, according to the condition of
the things, over which it is diffused.
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