INFINITE IS CONCEIVED BY THE THOUGHT'S MAKING ABSTRACTION OF THE FORM.
How then can we conceive the infinite? By making abstraction of form by thought. How will it be conceived? We may conceive of the infinite as simultaneously being the contraries, and not being them. It will have to be conceived as being simultaneously great and small; for the infinite becomes both of these.[6] It may also be conceived as both being moved, and being stable[7]; for the infinite becomes these two things also. But before the infinite becomes these two contraries, it is neither of them in any determinate manner; otherwise, you would have determined it. By virtue of its nature, the infinite is these things therefore in an indeterminate and infinite manner; only on this condition will it appear to be these contrary things. If, by applying your thought to the infinite, you do not entice it into a determination, as into a net, you will see the infinite escaping you, and you will not find anything in it that would be a unity; otherwise, you would have determined it. If you represented to yourself the infinite as a unity, it would seem to you manifold; if you say that it is manifold, it will again make game of you; for, all things do not form a manifold where no one thing is one. From still another standpoint, the nature of the infinite is movement, and according to another nature, stability; for its property of being invisible by itself constitutes a movement which distinguishes it from intelligence[8]; its property of not being able to escape, of being exteriorly embraced, of being circumscribed within an unescapable circle constitutes a sort of stability. Movement therefore cannot be predicated of infinity, without also attributing stability to it.