The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) · 33 of 49 · tr. L. Williams
Third Dialogue-e
This alone I will not leave (unsaid) that it is not without reason that the affection of the heart is said to be the infinite sea by the apprehension of the eyes.[X] For the object of the mind being infinite, and no definite object being proposed to the intellect, the will cannot be satisfied by a finite good, but if besides that, something else is found, it is desired and sought for; for, as is commonly said, the apex of the inferior species is the beginning of the superior species, whether the degrees are taken according to the forms, the which we cannot consider as being infinite, or according to the modes and reasons of those, in which way, the highest good being infinite, it would be supposed to be infinitely communicated, according to the condition of the things, over which it is diffused.
However, there is no definite species of the universe.
I speak according to the figure and mass; there is no definite species of the intellect; the affections are not a definite species.
[X] Fire, Flame, Day, Smoke, Night, and so on ...
These are all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers.—("The Secret Doctrine.") Lao.
These two powers of the soul, then, never are nor can be perfect for the object, if they refer to it infinitely?
Lib.
So it would be if this infinite were by negative privation or privative negation of the end, as it is for a more positive affirmation of the end, infinite and endless.[Y] [Y] "The deity is one, because it is infinite.
It is triple, because it is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body to become objective: privation, form and matter.
Privation meant in the mind of the great philosopher ...
the lowest plane and world of the Anima Mundi.—("The Secret Doctrine.") Lao.
You mean, then, two kinds of affinity; the one privative, the which may be towards something which is power, as, infinite is darkness, the end of which is the position of light; the other perfecting, which tends to the act and perfection, as infinite is the light, the end of which would be privation and darkness.[Z] In this, then, the intellect conceives the light, the good, the beautiful, in so far as the horizon of its capacity extends, and the soul, which drinks of Divine nectar and the fountain of eternal life in so far as its own vessel allows, and one sees that the light is beyond the circumference of his horizon, where it can go and penetrate more and more, and the nectar and fount of living water is infinitely fruitful, so that it can become ever more and more intoxicated.
[Z] "Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible." Darkness in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while the latter, in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya.—("The Secret Doctrine.") Lib.
From this it does not follow that there is imperfection in the object, nor that there is little satisfaction in the potency, but that the power is included in the object and beatifically absorbed by it.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The apex of the inferior species is the beginning of the superior species, indicating a structural correspondence between levels.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The text references Cosmo-psychic Powers and affinities between privative and perfecting modes.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
[auto] The passage explicitly states the soul can become 'ever more and more intoxicated' by drinking of the Divine nectar.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text discusses degrees of forms where the apex of the inferior species is the beginning of the superior species.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Privation is discussed as a mode of the infinite (darkness) relative to light, aligning with the privation theory of evil.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The power is absorbed by the object, suggesting the self-effacement of the individual will in the divine.
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
[auto] The text is from Bruno's Gli Eroici Furori and describes the affection of the heart and spiritual intoxication that drives the soul toward the infinite.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
[auto] The passage explicitly describes the object of the mind and the highest good as infinite, rejecting definite species or limits for the universe.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
The affection of the heart drives the will upward through degrees toward the infinite good, mirroring the scala amoris.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The soul is described as a vessel that drinks of the divine according to its own capacity, reflecting the cosmic structure within.
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
The text references Maya as illusion in the context of light and darkness metaphysics.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The soul is beatifically absorbed by the object, implying a transformation into partaker of the divine nature.