Alas! we poured into the wavy sea,
The strength of our two founts in vain,
For two opposing powers hold it concealed,
Lest it go rolling aimlessly adown.
The strength unmeasured of the burning heart,
Withholds a passage to the lofty streams;
Barring their twofold course unto the sea,
Nature abhors the covered ground.[W]
Now say, afflicted heart, what canst thou bring
To oppose against us with an equal force?
Oh, where is he, will boast himself to be
Exalted by this most unhappy love,
If of thy pain and mine it can be said,
The greater they, the less it may be seen.
[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. However, there is no definite species of the universe. I speak according to the figure and mass; there is no definite species of the intellect; the affections are not a definite species.
[X] Fire, Flame, Day, Smoke, Night, and so on ... These are all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers.—("The Secret Doctrine.")
Lao. These two powers of the soul, then, never are nor can be perfect for the object, if they refer to it infinitely?
Lib. So it would be if this infinite were by negative privation or privative negation of the end, as it is for a more positive affirmation of the end, infinite and endless.[Y]
[Y] "The deity is one, because it is infinite. It is triple, because it is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body to become objective: privation, form and matter. Privation meant in the mind of the great philosopher ... the lowest plane and world of the Anima Mundi.—("The Secret Doctrine.")