9. If all the elements, when begotten, were to be gathered into one
sphere, (there would be an opportunity of observing and comparing them.
The result would be a conclusion that) this sphere does not have a
plurality or a diversity of authors, one of whom would have created
one part, and another author, another. The production of this sphere
will imply a single Author, who created it by acting, as a whole; not
producing one part of creation by one part of Himself, and another part
of creation, by another part of Himself. In the latter case, the sphere
might still have several authors, if the production of the totality
were not traced to a single, indivisible Principle. Though this single
and indivisible Principle be the author of the entire sphere, it does
not interpenetrate the sphere; for it is the entire Sphere which
depends on its author. One only and single Life contains the entire
Sphere, because this is located in a single Life. All the things that
are in the sphere may, therefore, be reduced to a single Life, and all
the souls form a Soul which is single, but which is simultaneously
infinite. That is why certain philosophers have said that the soul is
a number;[5] others, that the number produces increase in the soul, no
doubt meaning by that, that nothing is deficient in soul, that she is
everywhere without ceasing to be herself. As to the expression, "to
produce increase to the soul," this must not be taken literally, but so
as to mean that the soul, in spite of her unity, is absent nowhere; for
the unity of the soul is not a unity that can be measured; that is the
peculiarity of another being which falsely claims unity for itself, and
which succeeds in gaining the appearance of unity only by participating
therein. The Essence which really is one is not a unity composed of
several things; for the withdrawal of one of them would destroy the
total unity. Nor is it separated from the other things by limits; for
if the other things were assimilated thereto, it would become smaller
in the case where these would be greater; either it would split itself
up into fragments by seeking to penetrate all, and instead of being
present to all, as an entirety, it would be reduced to touching their
parts by its own parts. If then this Essence may justly be called one,
if unity may be predicated of its being, it must, in a certain manner,
seem to contain the nature opposed to its own; that is, the manifold;
it must not attract this manifoldness from without, but it must, from
and by itself, possess this manifold; it must veritably be one, and
by its own unity be infinite and manifold. Being such, it seems as
if it were everywhere a Reason (a being), which is single, and which
contains itself. It is itself that which contains; and thus containing
itself, it is no where distant from itself; it is everywhere in itself.
It is not separated from any other being by a local distance; for it
existed before all the things which are in a locality; it had no need
of them; it is they, on the contrary, which need to be founded on it.
Even though they should come to be founded on it, it would not, on that
account, cease resting on itself as a foundation. If this foundation
were to be shaken, immediately all other things would perish, since
they would have lost the base on which they rested. Now this Essence
could not lose reason to the point of dissolving itself by withdrawing
from itself; and to be about to trust itself to the deceptive nature of
space which needs it for preservation.