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.