16. The ("seminal) reason," on approaching matter, and giving it the
extension it desired, made of it a magnitude. The "reason" drew from
itself the magnitude to give it to the matter, which did not possess
it, and which did not, merely on that account, acquire size; otherwise
the magnitude occurring within it would be magnitude itself. If we
remove form from matter, the substrate that then remains neither seems
nor is large (since magnitude is part of form). If what is produced
in matter be a certain magnitude, as for instance a man or a horse,
the magnitude characteristic of the horse disappears with the form of
the horse.[78] If we say that a horse cannot be produced except in a
mass of determined size, and that this magnitude remained (when the
form of the horse disappeared), we would answer that what would then
remain would not be the magnitude characteristic of the horse, but
the magnitude of mass. Besides, if this mass were fire or earth, when
the form of fire or that of earth disappeared, the magnitude of the
fire or of the earth would simultaneously disappear. Matter therefore
possesses neither figure nor quantity; otherwise, it would not have
ceased being fire to become something else, but, remaining fire, would
never "become" fire.[79] Now that it seems to have become as great as
this universe, if the heavens, with all they contain were annihilated,
all quantity would simultaneously disappear out of matter, and with
quantity also the other inseparable qualities will disappear. Matter
would then remain what it originally was by itself; it would keep
none of the things that exist within it. Indeed, the objects that can
be affected by the presence of contrary objects can, when the latter
withdraw, keep some trace of them; but that which is impassible retains
nothing; for instance, the air, when penetrated by the light, retains
none of it when it disappears. That that which has no magnitude can
become great is not any more surprising than that which has no heat
can become hot. Indeed, for matter to be matter is something entirely
different from its being magnitude; magnitude is as immaterial as
figure. Of matter such as it really is we should say that it is all
things by participation. Now magnitude forms part of what we call all
things. As the bodies are composite, magnitude is there among the
other qualities, without however being determinate therein. Indeed,
the "reason" of the body also contains magnitude.[80] On the contrary,
matter does not even contain indeterminate magnitude, because it is not
a body.
MAGNITUDE IS AN IMAGE FORMED BY THE UNIVERSAL REFLECTION OF UNIVERSAL
BEINGS.
17. Neither is matter magnitude itself; for magnitude is a form, and
not a residence; it exists by itself[81] (for matter cannot even
appropriate the images of beings). Not even in this respect, therefore,
is matter magnitude. But as that which exists in intelligence or in
the soul desired to acquire magnitude, it imparted to the things that
desired to imitate magnitude by their aspiration or movement, the power
to impress on some other object a modification analogous to their
own. Thus magnitude, by developing in the procession of imagination,
dragged along with itself the smallness of matter, made it seem large
by extending it along with itself, without becoming filled by that
extension. The magnitude of matter is a false magnitude, since matter
does not by itself possess magnitude, and by extending itself along
with magnitude, has shared the extension of the latter. Indeed as all
intelligible beings are reflected, either in other things in general,
or in one of them in particular, as each of them was large, the
totality also is, in this manner, great (?). Thus the magnitude of each
reason constituted a particular magnitude, as, for instance, a horse,
or some other being.[82] The image formed by the universal reflection
of intelligible beings became a magnitude, because it was illuminated
by magnitude itself. Every part of it became a special magnitude; and
all things together seemed great by virtue of the universal form to
which magnitude belongs. Thus occurred the extension of each thing
towards each of the others, and towards their totality. The amount of
this extension in form and in mass necessarily depended on the power,
that transformed what in reality was nothing to an appearance of being
all things. In the same manner color, that arose out of what is not
color, and quality, that arose out of what is not quality, here below
were referred to by the same name as the intelligible entities (of
which they are the images). The case is similar for magnitude, which
arose out of that which has none, or at least out of that magnitude
that bears the same name (as intelligible magnitude).