2. It becomes multiplicity, that is matter, organism, animality, etc., by a necessary interior movement.
The pantheistic idea of the infinite leads either to the idea of God given by the Catholic Church, or to absolute nihilism. Proven by the first principle of the pantheists.
Before entering upon the proof, we must lay down a few truths of ontology which are metaphysically certain.
First Principle. Being and actuality are one and the same thing.
The proof of this principle lies in the explanation of what actuality really means. Now, actuality is one of those ideas, called by logicians simple ideas, and which cannot be defined. We shall endeavor to explain it as follows.
Actuality is but a relation of our mind. When we think of a being, not as yet existing, but against the existence of which we see neither an interior nor an exterior reason, we call it possible being; and the perception of all this, in our mind, we call the perception of the possibility of a being.
But when we think of the being, not as possible, but as having, so to speak, travelled from possibility to real existence, we call that being actual; and the perception of the mind, the perception of the actuality of a being.
It is evident that actuality adds nothing to being, beyond a mere relation of our mind, which, comparing the being, as really existing, with its possibility, calls it actual; because it is existence in act, in contradistinction to possibility, which is power or potentiality.
Actuality, then, and being or reality are one and the same thing.
Second Principle. Actuality and duration are one and the same thing.