Conexio autem universorum per ipsum est, ut omnia, quamquam sint differentia, sint et conexa. Quapropter inter genera unum universum contrahentia talis est inferioris et superioris conexio, ut in medio coincident, ac inter species diversas talis combinationis ordo exsistit, ut suprema species generis unius coincidat cum infima immediate superioris, ut sit unum continuum perfectum universum.
All things, however disparate they may appear, in truth are bound together. There is in the genus of things such a connection between the higher and the lower order that they come together at a joining point. Such an order obtains among the species that the highest species of one genus coincides with the lowest of the next genus. This is in order that the universe may be one, perfect and continuous.
—Niclas Krebs, later Cardinal Nicholas of Kues, De docta ignorantia, lib. iii, cap. i (1440) in: Nikolaus von Kues’ philosophisch-theologische Werke in deutscher und lateinischer Sprache, vol. 1, p. iii/6 (S.H. transl.)
