Cic. If the human intellect is finite in nature and in act, how can it have an infinite potency?
Tans. Because it is eternal, and in this ever has delight, so that it enjoys happiness without end or
measure; and because, as it is finite in itself, so it may be infinite in the object.
Cic. What difference is there between the infinity of the object and the infinity of the potentiality?
Tans. This is finitely infinite, and that infinitely infinite. But to return to ourselves. The legend there says: "Novæ Liparææ æoliæ," because it seems as if we are to believe that all the winds which are in the abysmal caverns of Æolus were converted into sighs, if we include those which proceed from the affection, which aspires continually to the highest good and to the infinite beauty.
XIII.
Cic. Here we see the signification of that burning light around which is written: "Ad vitam, non ad horam."
Tans. Persistence in such a love and ardent desire of true goodness, by which in this temporal state the enthusiast is consumed. This, I think, is shown in the following tablet:
37.
[A]What time the day removes the orient vault,
The rustic peasant leaves his humble home,
And when the sun with fiercer tangent strikes,
Fatigued and parched, he sits him in the shade;