BEING SUBSTANTIALLY IDENTICAL, BUT LOGICALLY DISTINCT IS NONSENSE.
If matter be called nonentity in this sense that it is not essence, but something else than essence, there is still room to draw up two definitions, of which one would apply to the substrate, and the other to the privation, merely to explain that it is a disposition to become something else? It would be better to acknowledge that matter, like the substrate, should be defined a disposition to become other things. If the definition of privation shows the indetermination of matter, it can at least indicate its nature. But we could not admit that matter and privation are one thing in respect to their substrate, though logically distinct; for how could there be a logical distinction into two things, if a thing be identical with matter as soon as it is indeterminate, indefinite, and lacking quality?
MATTER AS THE INFINITE IN ITSELF.
15. Let us further examine if the indeterminate, or infinite, be an accident, or an attribute of some other nature; how it comes to be an accident, and whether privation ever can become an accident. The things that are numbers and reasons are exempt from all indetermination, because they are determinations, orders, and principles of order for the rest. Now these principles do not order objects already ordered, nor do they order orders. The thing that receives an order is different from that which gives an order, and the principles from which the order is derived are determination, limitation and reason. In this case, that which receives the order and the determination must necessarily be the infinite (as thought Plato).[310] Now that which receives the order is matter, with all the things which, without being matter, participate therein, and play the part of matter. Therefore matter is the infinite itself.[311] Not accidentally is it the infinite; for the infinite is no accident. Indeed, every accident must be a reason; now of what being can the infinite be an accident? Of determination, or of that which is determined? Now matter is neither of these two. Further, the infinite could not unite with the determinate without destroying its nature. The infinite, therefore, is no accident of matter (but is its nature, or "being"). Matter is the infinite itself. Even in the intelligible world, matter is the infinite.
THE INFINITE MAY BE EITHER IDEAL OR REAL, INFINITE OR INDEFINITE.
The infinite seems born of the infinity of the One, either of its power, or eternity; there is no infinity in the One, but the One is creator of the infinite. How can there be infinity simultaneously above and below (in the One and in matter)? Because there are two infinities (the infinite and the indefinite; the infinite in the One, the indefinite in matter). Between them obtains the same difference as the archetype and its image.[312] Is the infinite here below less infinite? On the contrary, it is more so. By the mere fact that the image is far from veritable "being," it is more infinite. Infinity is greater in that which is less determinate (as thought Aristotle).[313] Now that which is more distant from good is further in evil. Therefore the infinite on high, possessing the more essence, is the ideal infinite; here below, as the infinite possesses less essence, because it is far from essence and truth, it degenerates into the image of essence, and is the truer (indefinite) infinite.
MATTER AS THE INFINITE IN ITSELF.
Is the infinite identical with the essence of the infinite? There is a distinction between them where there is reason and matter; where however matter is alone, they must be considered identical; or, better, we may say absolutely that here below the infinite does not occur; otherwise it would be a reason, which is contrary to the nature of the infinite. Therefore matter in itself is the infinite, in opposition to reason. Just as reason, considered in itself, is called reason, so matter, which is opposed to reason by its infinity, and which is nothing else (than matter), must be called infinite.
MATTER IS NONESSENTIAL OTHERNESS.
16. Is there any identity between matter and otherness? Matter is not identical with otherness itself, but with that part of otherness which is opposed to real beings, and to reasons. It is in this sense that one can say of nonentity that it is something, that it is identical with privation, if only privation be the opposition to things that exist in reason. Will privation be destroyed by its union with the thing of which it is an attribute? By no means. That in which a (Stoic) "habit" occurs is not itself a "habit," but a privation. That in which determination occurs is neither determination, nor that which is determined, but the infinite, so far as it is infinite. How could determination unite with the infinite without destroying its nature, since this infinite is not such by accident? It would destroy this infinite, if it were infinite in quantity; but that is not the case. On the contrary, it preserves its "being" for it, realizes and completes its nature; as the earth which did not contain seeds (preserves its nature) when it receives some of them; or the female, when she is made pregnant by the male. The female, then, does not cease being a female; on the contrary she is so far more, for she realizes her nature ("being").