Note 105 — Concerning the imparticipable[105] (or that which is without participation), and that which participates.

By imparticipable, in these Elements, we must understand that which participates nothing belonging to the characteristic of its nature, and which is likewise participated through proper mediums by all subordinate natures. Thus for instance imparticipable being, is that which participates nothing of being, but is the source of being, to others; and at the same time it is not participated without a medium by subordinate essences; since the participation of being, in subordinate natures, is accomplished through the immediate progeny of being itself. And so of the rest. Nor ought it to seem wonderful that an imparticipable should preside over every series of causes: for this is a necessary consequence, if we consider that every cause must be that to its following progeny, which the first cause of all, is to the universality of things. But the first cause of all is perfectly imparticipable; since he would not be purely the one, if he was mingled with many, and received the condition of a subordinate nature. As the divine unities therefore are participated by all the following orders of things, and are the mediums, by which every being is conjoined with the first cause of all; so the immediate progeny of every primary cause conjoins all the subsequent progressions with that cause, which from its similarity to the first is properly denominated an imparticipable.