Summa theorice philosophie - The Aims of the Philosophers

Written by al-Ġazālī (Algazel).

Transcribed by: Carolin Helmer.

Translation Arabic to Latin: Dominicus Gundisalvi, Magister Iohannes.
Transcribed from: al-Ġazālī (Algazel), Algazel’s Metaphysics: A Mediaeval Translation, ed. Joseph T. Muckle (Toronto, 1933).

PART ONE
Here begins the Treatise on the Science which among the Philosophers is called Divine.

It was customary among the philosophers to put natural science first.
But we choose to put divine [science] first, because it is more necessary and is of greater diversity, and because it is the end of all the sciences and of the inquiry into them.
For this reason they, on account of its difficulty and obscurity, postponed it, and because it is more difficult to know it before [one knows] natural [science].

We, however, will insert certain things from natural [science] without which the divine [science] cannot be understood; and we shall complete what we are going to say about the intentions of this divine science in two propositions and five treatises.

The first of these is about the divisions of being and about its judgments.
The second, about the cause of the being of the universe, which is God most high.
The third, about His properties.
The fourth, about His works and about the comparison of the things that are to Him.
The fifth is how things have being from Him according to their intention.

The first proposition is about the division of the sciences.

There is no doubt that every science has a subject, whose dispositions are inquired into in that science.

Now all the things that there are, about which it is possible to treat in the sciences, are divided into two: namely, into those that have being from our operation, such as all human works – laws, constitutions, the worship of God, exercises, wars, and other such things – and into those that do not have being from our operation, such as the heaven, the earth, plants, animals, metals, spirits, and other such things.

Without doubt, therefore, the knowing of wisdom is divided into two. One of these is that by which one comes to know the dispositions of our works, and it is called active science, whose usefulness is to know by it the manners of actions to be done, through which there come to be things useful for us in this world, and our hope concerning eternal life is made certain.

The other is that by which the dispositions of all things that are are known, to the end that there may be described in our souls the form of the being of the universe according to its order, just as the form of a visible thing is described in a mirror.

Now such a description in our souls is their perfection, since the aptitude of the soul to receive these things is a property of the soul itself. Hence, that these things be described in the soul is, in the present life, the highest nobility, and in the future the cause of happiness, as will be shown in what follows; and this is called theoretical science.

Each of these sciences is divided into three.

Active [science] indeed is divided into three. One of these is the science of ordering one’s intercourse with all human beings. For man is a creature who must needs live in intercourse with men, which cannot be well ordered for him so that it be useful to him in this world and in the future, except according to its proper mode. Now the root of this science is the science of the faith. But its perfection consists in the sciences of the dispositions that are necessary for ruling cities and their citizens.

The second is the science of ordering one’s own household, through which it is known how one ought to live with one’s wife, and children, and servants, and with all one’s household members.

The third is moral science, by which it is known what a man ought to be in himself, namely chaste and useful in his morals and properties. And since every man is either alone or mixed with others – and this mixing is either properly with the members of his own household, or in common with his fellow citizens – therefore this science, according to these three dispositions, is divided into three, without doubt.

Speculative science likewise is divided into three.

The first of these is called divine science and first philosophy.
The second is called disciplinary or mathematical science, and is called the middle science.
The third is natural science, the lowest science.

Now this science is divided into three for no other reason than that all things that are understood either:

are entirely outside matter and are not joined to bodies that are changeable and mobile, as is God Himself most high, and the angel, and unity, and cause and caused, the fitting and unfitting, and being and privation, and the like.

Of these, some are such that it is impossible for them to exist in matter, as God and the angelic essence.
Others are such that, although they do not have a due [or proper] existence in matter, yet it happens to them to exist in matter, as unity and cause. For a body is called “one” and is called a “cause,” just as an angel also is so called, yet by their own necessity they do not have to exist in matters.

Or else they depend on matter, and this of necessity in one of two ways.

For either they cannot even be conceived without their proper matter, as man, plant, heaven, earth, minerals, and the remaining species of bodies;

or they can be conceived without their proper matter, as triangle, the round, and the long. For although these do not have being except when they are in matter, yet as regards their being, proper matter is not owed them, because they can be placed in iron, wood, earth, and other such things – not like man, who cannot be understood except in his proper matter, which is flesh, bones, sinews, and the rest. For if the matter of man were posited to be wood, it would not be a man. But a square, whether it be in wax, or in wood, or in many other things, will always be a square. These, then, can be conceived and understood without any consideration of matter.

The science, therefore, that treats only of those things that are entirely outside matter is theology.
The science, however, that treats of those things that can be conceived outside matter, but do not have being except in matter, is mathematics.
But the science that treats of those things that do not have being except in determinate (or “designated”) matters is natural science.

This, then, is the reason why these sciences are distributed into three. Speculation, therefore, of philosophy consists in these three sciences and in those treatises.

The second proposition is the showing of the subject of these sciences, so that from this the subject of divine science, in whose path we are, may appear.

Now the subject of natural science is the bodies of the world, in so far as they fall under motion and rest and change – not in so far as they have number, measure, and shape and roundness, nor in so far as their parts are compared with other things, nor in so far as they are the workmanship of God most high. For the consideration of body can be made in all these ways; but the natural investigator considers bodies only in so far as they are changed and converted.

Natural science indeed has many branches, such as medicine, images, incantations, elections, and so on.

The subject of mathematics, on the other hand, is universally quantity, but in a divided way it is magnitude and multitude. Mathematics too has many roots and branches; but its roots are the science of geometry, and the science of number, and the science about the form of the world, namely astrology, and music. And its branches are the science of aspects, the science of weights, the science of moving machines, the science of works of art and devices, and the rest.

But the subject of divine science is that which is most common to all things, namely being simply or absolutely.

Now the things that are inquired into in this science are what follow upon being itself, in so far as it is only being, namely: substance and accident, universal and singular, one and many, cause and caused, in potency and in act, the fitting and unfitting, what ought to be, or what must necessarily be, and the possible, and the like.

For all these follow upon being from the fact that it is an ens (a being) – not as triangulation and quadration, which follow upon ens but only after measure comes to be; nor like evenness and oddness, which follow upon ens but only after number comes to be; nor like whiteness and blackness, which do not follow upon ens except after a natural body comes to be.

And, in general, whatever is said [to be] that does not follow upon ens unless after it becomes the subject of one of these two arts, namely mathematics and physics – that, assuredly, does not belong to the consideration of this divine science.

Moreover, the consideration of the cause of the being of the universe falls within this science. For ens is divided into cause and caused, and the consideration of the unity of the cause falls within it, and that this [cause] is what must be, and the consideration of its properties, and that the remaining beings depend upon it, and how they have flowed forth from it.

But the proper consideration of this science is about the unity [of the first cause]; this is called divine science and the science of dominion (or lordship).

Now that which is farther removed from doubt and error is mathematics; natural [science], however, is more impeded, because things of nature are always in change, and for this reason they are foreign to certainty, which is not the case in mathematics.

These, therefore, are the propositions.

What follows concerns the treatises, the first of which is about the divisions of being and its essential accidents; and these will be made clear by divisions.

FIRST DIVISION OF BEING

The first division of being is into substance and accident, and this seems to be a division by differences and species.

Now the way of understanding this division is as follows: the intellect, without doubt, apprehends being according to the mode of imagination, and it does not need, in order to apprehend it, a definition or a description; for being has neither definition nor description.

It does not have a definition, because a definition is an explanation of the conjunction of genus and difference; but being has no genus more common than itself, to which its difference might be added and from which being might then arise.

A description, likewise, is an explanation for knowing what is hidden by means of what is manifest; but nothing is more manifest or better known than being, by which being itself could be known.

Again, it cannot have definition or description, because whatever can ultimately be said about being is this: being is that which is divided into “having a beginning” and “not having a beginning.” But this cannot be a definition or description of being, because this would be to describe a thing by that which is not known except through it.

For “having a beginning” is not known except after being is known, and likewise “not having a beginning”; for “having a beginning” is interpreted as “a being after privation,” and “not having a beginning” is interpreted as “a being which no privation has preceded.”

It is therefore clear that the notion of being is conceived in the intellect as a first conception, not by an inquiry into its definition or description.

It is also clear to one who understands that being is divided into that which needs a subject in which it subsists, as accidents, and that which does not need a subject.

Now that which needs a subject is divided into that which comes into a subject already constituted of itself without that accident, and the subject does not need it for its constitution, nor does its arrival change the essence of the subject, nor alter the answer about it to the question put concerning it, “What is it?” as blackness and heat in cloth and in a man; and into that which, on arriving, constitutes the essence of the subject, and on account of whose arrival its truth and the answer to “What is it?” are changed, as the form of man in seed, and the form of a mouse in earth.

For whoever shows a piece of cloth and asks about it, “What is it?”, the answer will be: “cloth.” But after it becomes white, or black, or warm, and it is asked about, “What is it?”, the same answer will be given, namely that it is cloth; for blackness or heat, on arriving, does not take away from it its being cloth, nor does it destroy the truth of its essence.

Seed, however, after it is converted into a man, cannot be answered “seed” to the question put about it, “What is it?” Likewise, earth, after it becomes a mouse, cannot be said to be earth.

Heat, therefore, and color are affections on whose arrival the cloth remains cloth; but the earth does not remain earth once it has received the form of a mouse, nor does seed remain seed once it has received the form of humanity.

Heat, therefore, and the form of humanity are equal in this respect, that each of them needs something in which it may subsist; but between the things in which they subsist, and between themselves, there is a difference.

It is therefore necessary that we agree upon two different names, namely that whatever is like color and heat in cloth is called an accident, and that in which the accident subsists is called the subject.

According to this agreement in naming, then, an accident is understood as that which exists in a subject; and its subject is understood as that which exists of itself without it. But whatever is like humanity is called form, and that in which it exists is called hyle (prime matter).

Wherefore wood is the subject of the form of a bed, and it is the hyle of the form of ashes after burning; for wood remains wood after receiving the form of a bed, and it does not remain wood after receiving the form of ashes.

Moreover, form is called substance, because the philosophers have so agreed, that substance is every being which is not in a subject; and form is not in a subject, as we have shown. Hyle likewise is substance. Therefore substance is divided into four species, which are: hyle, form, body, and separated intelligence existing of itself.

Now in every body are found the three first substances, as in a body which is composed of the form of wateriness and of the hyle which sustains the form.

Accordingly, hyle is of itself substance, and form is of itself substance, and the composite from both, which is body, is substance.

This, then, is the exposition of the divisions in the intellect, according as they have agreed in names. But that those three are substances will be shown by demonstrations in what follows, apart from body, which is subject to sight.

For as to intelligence and hyle and form, proof is certainly required.

It follows, then, from this that substance is called both that in which something exists and that which exists in it.

In this we disagree with the unskilled, who say that form is an accidental being, consequent upon the being of that in which it exists.

But how will form not be substance, when by it the essence of substance is constituted and the truth of its being is made manifest?

How, moreover, will form be an accident, since an accident is what comes into a subject after the subject has been constituted of itself?

Hyle also follows upon form for its own constitution; wherefore, how will the root of substance not be substance?

CHAPTER ON THE ASSIGNING OF THE DEFINITION OF BODY

After the intellect has divided substance into body and non-body, and since among all substances only body is that which is grasped by sense and does not need demonstration, for this reason it was necessary to begin from the showing of its definition and its certainty.

Body, therefore, is every substance in which three extensions can be posited, intersecting one another at right angles.

For when you consider the essence of intelligence and of God most high, you will not be able to posit in it length or extension in any way.
But when you consider the heaven or the earth or any of the other bodies, it will be possible for you to posit in them a continuous extension receptive of division and separation.

Now extension in one direction is called length, and this is found only in a line.
And extension in two directions is called length and breadth, and these two are found only in a surface, since a surface is extended in two directions, whereas a line in only one.
But nothing is found that can be extended in three directions except body.

Whatever, therefore, is such that three extensions intersecting one another at right angles can be conceived in it, is a body.

And we have added “at right angles,” because without this it is possible to posit in any body many more extensions not at right angles, as in this [figure].

But if it is laid down that they intersect one another at right angles, then there cannot be more than three, namely length, breadth, and depth.

Now a right angle is that which a straight line makes, standing upon the middle of another straight line, not inclined toward either of the two parts, so that the two angles which are made on either side are equal; and then, when they are equal, each will be called right, as in this [figure].

But if it is inclined toward one of the parts, for example to the right, as this [one] is, then the angle formed on the side of its inclination becomes narrower than the angle opposite to it and is called acute, and the broad angle opposite to it is called expansus (obtuse).

Some, however, have defined body by saying: body is that which is long, broad, and deep, or thick. But this definition is incautious.

For a body is not a body on account of the length and breadth and thickness which are in it in actuality, but on account of the aptitude for receiving three dimensions, namely length, breadth, and thickness; and this is proved as follows.

If, for instance, you take wax and shape it to the length of one palm, the breadth of two fingers, and the thickness of one finger, it is indeed a body, but not in so far as that length and breadth and thickness are in it. For if afterwards you make it round or of some other shape, those marked extensions are destroyed and other extensions succeed in place of them, while the bodily form has in no way been changed.

The measures, therefore, which are in a body in actuality are accidents outside the essence of body. But they accompany it inseparably, as in the figure of the heaven. For an inseparable accident is like blackness in an Ethiopian.

What is essential, therefore, to body, namely its bodily form, is to be apt to receive the placing of extensions, not to have them in actuality; but the measure which is in it in actuality is an accident.

Wherefore it is granted that one and the same body can receive a greater and a lesser measure. For sometimes it becomes smaller, sometimes larger, by itself, without anything being added from outside, because measure is an accident of it, and none of the measures is more properly assigned to it than another.

By this it is signified that measure is not the truth of corporeity, since bodies are equal in bodily form and are in no way understood as different according to it, whereas they are different in quantities, without doubt.

CHAPTER ON THE DIFFERENCE OF OPINION ABOUT
THE COMPOSITION OF BODY

Men have indeed held different opinions about the composition of body, and we cannot know the truth in this matter unless we first show which of the opinions is more true. Concerning this, there have been three opinions.

Some said that body is composed of parts indivisible in intellect and in act, which are called atoms. They called these units and partless substances, and said that body is composed out of these.

Others said that body is in no way composed, but is one being in the truth of its essence and in definition, having no plurality within itself.

Others said that body is composed of matter and form.

Now the first opinion, of those who said that body is composed of partless substances, is destroyed in six ways.

The first is this: if one of these substances be placed between two others, then each of the two extremes will either touch in the middle something different from what the other touches, or the same.

If it touches something different, then it is divisible, because that which one of the extremes has occupied is not that which the other has occupied.

But if they touch the same [thing], this is without doubt impossible. For it follows from this that each of the extremes will penetrate the middle totally, because it has touched it wholly, since the middle has no totality, inasmuch as it is one. One of them has touched something of it, therefore already it has touched the whole. And the other likewise has touched the whole. It follows, then, that there is made one and the same place of the three and of the middle.

Otherwise, the middle would be set apart between the two extremes, and one of the extremes would touch something other than what the other touches. For the one cannot touch the same as the other unless one of them has penetrated into the other. The same will also happen if a third, or a fourth, or more are added. It will necessarily follow that the space of a thousand parts is not greater than the space of one part. That this is absurd is clearly evident; in that case nothing could be composed out of them.

The second [argument] is this: let five of the aforesaid substances be arranged in the manner of a line, and upon the two ends of the line let two [other] parts be placed in this way.

The intellect can without doubt admit this arrangement, namely, that these two parts placed above [the ends] should begin to move at the same time equally towards one another until they meet. On this supposition each of them will cut off a part of the middle one; the middle, therefore, is now divided, otherwise it follows that they could not meet one another with an equal motion.

But suppose that when they begin to move, and one of them has reached the second part of the line, it stops there until the other reaches the third part of the line. From where, then, comes this variety of unequal motion? Or how does it happen that this occurs rather on the right than on the left, when each could equally have done this, and each is equally capable of motion?

The third [argument] is this: let two lines be posited, each of which consists of six parts, but let one of them be the line ab, the other the line cd, and let them be equidistant and opposite to one another in this way.

Now let us suppose two parts begin to move, one of them from a to b, the other from d to c, so that they are set opposite one above the other.

Without doubt, they will first be opposite one another, and one will be above the other and they will be equidistant; then one will pass beyond the other; and it is possible to suppose that they move equally.

And then, if the substance is partless, it is impossible for them to meet. For their meeting can occur only in one of three ways: either they will meet in the two points e and h, and then one will pass through three parts of its line and the other through two; or they will meet in the two points t and z, and then one of them passes through three parts and the other through two; thus the motion will not be equal. Or one of them will be at point t and the other at point e, and each of them will have passed through two parts; but the points e and t are not directly opposite.

Therefore direct opposition and passage with equality of motion are destroyed, which is altogether impossible. And this impossibility arises solely because we have posited the substance to be indivisible; for they will be opposite at the midpoint of each.

For every length admits of division into two equal halves; therefore the halving of the line is the middle between them, and thus they are directly opposite one above the other.

The fourth [argument] is this: let sixteen partless substances be laid continuously together in the form of a square, four by four, in this way:

And although we have posited them as distinct, yet let us understand them as joined so that there is no space between them. Then, without doubt, the sides are equal; for each side is composed of four parts, and its diagonal likewise of four.

It follows, therefore, that its diagonal is equal to each of the sides, which is impossible. For every diagonal cutting a square into two equal triangles is always greater than any of the sides; and this is evident to sense in all squares, and is proved in geometry. This, however, becomes impossible if we posit partless substances.

The fifth [argument] is this: if we set up a staff in the sun’s ray, it will without doubt cast a shadow; and then, along the ray from the end of the shadow, which is from the top of the staff, up to the sun, a straight line is extended. It is therefore necessary that the shadow either moves when the sun moves, or not.

Now a ray is not extended except in a straight line. If, then, when the sun moves, the shadow does not move, then one line on one side will have two ends: one in the place where the sun was before, and the other in the place to which the sun has afterwards moved, which is impossible.

But if the shadow does move, then when the sun moves by one atom, and the shadow moves by less than one atom, the atom is divided. If, however, the shadow moves as much as the sun, this indeed is absurd: for the sun passes over thousands upon thousands of miles, while the shadow does not move by so much as the thickness of a single hair.

The sixth [argument] is this: when a wooden or stone wheel is revolved, without doubt the parts of its middle move less than the outer parts, because the middle circle is smaller than the outer circle.

But when the outer circle moves by one atom, then the middle circle either will move less than that so that the atom is divided or it will not move, and it will then follow that all the parts of the wheel are separated, so that some move and some do not, but remain at rest. And sense judges that this is false, for the parts of the wheel are in no way separated.

The refutation of the second opinion, which says that [body] is in no way composed, but is one being in definition and in the truth of its essence, is as follows. If two things are truly predicated of that which is one in every way, then one of them is truly predicated of the other.

But we shall show that there are two things which can truly be said of body, of which one is not true of the other. Bodily form is understood to be continuity without doubt. But a body that is continuous is altogether receptive of discontinuity.

Now that which is receptive of discontinuity is either the continuity itself, or something else. But that the receptacle of discontinuity should be the continuity itself is impossible. For the receptacle is that which remains when what is received is present; and we cannot say that privation precedes the habit.

Therefore continuity is not receptive of discontinuity; it is necessary, then, that something else be the receptacle of both continuity and discontinuity. And this receptacle is called hyle (matter), according to the agreement of the philosophers. The continuity received is called form.

But a body cannot be understood without continuity, nor continuity without the continuous, nor extension without that which is extended. Therefore the continuous is other than continuity in definition and in its proper being; yet they are not different in place, nor can one be distinguished from the other by a sensible signification, but only by an intelligible one. Because the intellect judges something of the one which it does not judge of the other: namely, it has judged that the receptacle of discontinuity cannot be continuity itself. Yet it has judged that something is the receptacle of discontinuity. Therefore that thing is other than continuity; the intellect, then, already detects a difference between them. But nothing is different from itself.

This, therefore, is the proof that matter and form are in every body.

In the essence of God, however, and in the essences of intelligences, and in the essence of an accident, since neither continuity nor discontinuity can be posited, it does not follow that there is composition in them. Only bodies, without doubt, are necessarily composed of form and matter.

From all the foregoing it follows that the third opinion is true. For body is not composed of atoms, whether finite or infinite. For if atoms were infinite, then body could not be cut from one extreme to the other, because one cannot reach the half of the whole unless one first reaches the half of the half, and likewise first the half of the half of the half, and so forth, and thus infinite halves would result. Wherefore it is not possible to cut it.

But body does not have a part in act, only in potency; for it does not have parts except when it is divided, nor cuts except when it is cut, nor separations except when it is separated.

Therefore, when someone says that body is divisible, or cuttable, or separable, and does not understand that it is apt for these, he is mistaken. For how will a continuous one body be divisible or cuttable or separable? Yet it is apt for these. Now these three, namely division, cutting, separation, are names of one and the same thing, and are said of it according to potency, not according to act; nor are they in act except in three ways: either by the separation of parts from one another, or by diversity of accident in the body, as in wood of many colors in which one part is white and another black, or in estimation namely, when you form an estimate concerning one end of the body without the other.

And that of which alone you form an estimate is other than that of which you do not form an estimate; and your estimate of it is like the placing of your finger upon it. For when you place your finger upon one end of the body, that which you touch is other than that which you do not touch; thus division is made. Likewise, that of which your estimation alone takes account is other than that of which it does not.

Therefore it is difficult to think that one body has no part, because estimation always tends to think first of one part rather than another, and of one without the other, by positions; hence, for estimation, body will always be divided by an estimative division, although it has no division in itself. But division befalls it from the act of estimation, whereas in reality it is only apt for the act of estimation.

And since it is clear that this aptitude easily receives such [acts], and imagination cannot be separated from it, therefore estimation cannot believe that a body consisting of similar parts, as is a body of water, is one.

But what estimation thinks it knows that the water at the bottom of the vessel is other than that at the top of the vessel this indeed is true; for division arises from the diversity of the contact with different parts. Likewise, that estimation posits two parts not touching the vessel itself, and that the part on the right is necessarily other than that on the left, this too is true.

But this division arises only from the differing accidents of being on the right or on the left, or of being nearer to the surface or to the middle of the vessel; and all this produces the necessity of division.

If, however, all these differences are removed, and one body everywhere similar is understood, then the intellect will judge it to be one, not having a part in act, although it is receptive of division.

And this indeed is the uncovering of what in this matter was hidden.

CHAPTER ON THE CONCOMITANCE OF HYLE AND FORM

Hyle does not have actual being in itself without form in any way at all; for its being is never without form. Likewise, form does not exist in itself without hyle.

The signs, moreover, that hyle cannot be empty of form are two.

One is this: if hyle could be empty of form, then necessarily either it itself, or the region and place where it would be, could be designated by the hand with sensible indication, or not.

If it itself could be designated by the hand, then it would have two parts, because that which would be touched of it on one side would not be that which would be touched of it on the other side. Therefore it would be divisible. Therefore the form of corporeity would be in it, since nothing else is understood by the bodily form except being receptive of division.

But if it could not be designated by the hand, this likewise would be false. For when form comes to it, then either it is in every place, or in no place at all, or in one place only and not in another; and these three are false of it. Therefore that which leads to this is false.

The destruction of the position that it is in every place or in no place is manifest; but that it be appropriated to one place and not to another is destroyed as follows:

The corporeal form, in that it is corporeal, does not need a place specially assigned to it; for with respect to it all places are as one. That it rather requires this place than another happens because of something other than corporeity, namely from the fact that hyle was in the designated place and the arriving form found it there and so was appropriated to that place; and because hyle cannot be designated by the hand, it cannot be appropriated more to one place than to another.

If someone were to say that a similar question can be asked about body itself, namely, why body is appropriated to one place rather than another, since, in that it is body, it agrees equally with every place, the answer will be: this is indeed true. For just as we cannot imagine hyle to have being in act without the addition of a form subsisting in it, so neither can we imagine body to have being absolutely with the form of corporeity alone, without the addition of something beyond the form of corporeity by which its species is perfected.

And just as we cannot imagine “animal” absolutely, without its being a horse or an ass or a man or some other [such thing], because an addition is needed namely that a difference be joined to the genus so that its species may be perfected and being in act come about so among the things that exist we nowhere find “body” absolutely, but only specified body, such as heaven, star, fire, air, water, earth, and the composite from these.

Therefore that a body is appropriated to one place rather than to another happens through its form. And thus earth, by its earthy form, becomes nearer to the center; and fire, by its fiery form, becomes nearer to the heaven; and similarly for the others.

If someone should say that there still remains further to inquire why this part of this species is appropriated to this place rather than to another for example, pointing out one portion of the water of the sea and saying: for this portion, in that it is water, this portion of this place is no more fitting than another, since it is just as possible for it to be in the middle as around the middle of the sea what, then, is the cause that makes it be appropriated to this place rather than to another?

The answer will be that this happens to it because the form of “wateriness” which is in that portion of water found hyle there in which it stood fast. For example, let us say that there was air there which was converted into water. There was indeed air there, which, when a cooling cause came to it there, it converted into water, and the water remained there, although the hyle was not there without form, but with the form of air-ness, which stripped off, it put on the form of water-ness. This, then, is one of the causes.

Another is that that which is moved rather to that place is so moved by a moving cause or by other causes. But to the form of wateriness in itself taken absolutely, no one of all the parts of the place of water is more assigned than another; rather, [its being in this particular part] comes from something else, from the causes we have assigned, which are outside it.

It is therefore clear that hyle does not have existence in itself without form.

The other sign is this: if hyle is taken naked of form, then either it is divided or it is not divided. If it is divided, then the form of corporeity is in it. If, however, it is not divided, then that which resists division must be either natural and essential to it, or accidental.

If it is essential to it, then it is impossible for it ever again to receive any division, just as it is impossible for an accident to be converted into a body, or an intelligence into a body.

If, however, it is accidental to it and extraneous to it, then there is already form in it. Therefore it is in no way wholly empty of form. But this form is contrary to the form of corporeity. Yet the form of corporeity has no contrary, as you will know when we speak about contrariety.

If someone should say: “Since we grant that the form of corporeity is not separated from hyle, why do you deny that it is an inseparable accident of it?”, we shall answer that this is impossible. For a subject is something that in the intellect exists in itself without the accident, although they are not separated in being.

For the intellect is the way of considering the being of the subject in itself, namely, whether it can be designated in itself or not, or divided or not. And then the same two proofs mentioned above return, with the addition of questions, that is, because if hyle in itself cannot be designated, but rather the designation is of the form, which is an accident, and yet an accident exists in the essence of a subject, then, if that subject has not been designated, it will have to be separate from the accident which can be designated. And then neither will that be its subject nor will this accident exist in that subject when it has been designated, all of which is absurd.

Therefore it is clear from what has been said that hyle is not found without form, and that corporeal form and hyle together also do not have being unless a difference perfecting the species of that body is added to them.

For every body of itself naturally tends toward the place in which it may rest. But this it does not have from the fact that it is a body, but from something further added. And every body can either be easily divided, or with great difficulty, or it is impossible to divide it; and all this is not from its corporeity alone, but from something further added.

For it needs something further added by which its being is perfected; from which it follows that body is a substance and is composed of two substances, namely form and hyle.

Their composition, however, is not like the conjunction of two discrete things, each of which has being without the conjunction, but is an intelligible composition, as you have already learned.

CHAPTER ON ACCIDENTS

It is necessary to divide accidents after the division of substances. First, they are divided into two, because some of them are such that their essence in no way can be understood by itself unless something else outside them is understood, and some of them are such as can be understood by themselves.

And these are divided into two species, namely quantity and quality.

Quantity is an accident which befalls substance on account of the measuring of the substance, and increase, and decrease, and equality, such as length, and breadth, and depth, and time; for these are understood in themselves, without reference to anything else outside themselves.

The second species is quality, for the understanding of which likewise it is not necessary to look to something else; it does not befall substance on account of division, which does not befall the substance itself. Of this, however, there are two species, because some are sensible, others are not.

An example of sensible [qualities], which are apprehended by the senses, is as follows: colors, tastes, odors, roughness and smoothness, softness and hardness, wetness, dryness, heat and cold.

But those which are not sensible are either an aptitude for perfection and its contrary, as the power of wrestling and of remaining healthy, and, as it were, weakness and sickness; or they are perfection, as knowledge and gentleness (meekness).

Those, on the other hand, which cannot be understood by themselves without reference to others, are seven, namely: relation, where, when, position, having, acting, and being-acted-on (passion).

Relation is a disposition which is an accident of substance, arising from the fact that there is some other thing opposed to it, as fatherhood and sonship, brotherhood and friendship, neighborhood and equidistance, being to the right and to the left; for fatherhood is not in the father except because the son is opposed to him.

Where (ubi) is the being of something in a place, as something’s being above or below.

When (quando) is the being of something in time, as “yesterday,” or “in the past,” or “today.”

Position (situs) is the comparison of the parts of a body among themselves, as sitting, lying, standing; for, from the difference of the position of the legs in relation to the thighs, standing and sitting are differentiated.

Having (habere), which is also called habitus, is a certain way of enclosing or encompassing something else such that it is moved with its movement, as “having a head-covering,” “being cloaked,” “being tunic-wearing,” “being shod,” and as a horse’s being saddled and bridled.

But if it is not the encompassing [thing] but the moved [thing], it will not belong to this predicament: for instance, if someone were to place a tunic over his head, he will not be “tunic-wearing.” And if it is the encompassing [thing], but not moved, likewise it will not belong to this predicament; for a house encompasses a man, and a vessel encompasses water, but they are not moved with the movement of the thing encompassed.

Acting (agere) is a thing’s making [something] to be in such a way that it impresses upon another in act, as fire’s heating or burning in act, when these effects arise from it.

Being-acted-on (pati), which is opposed to it, is the continual receiving of an impression from another, as being heated, being cooled, and the like. But heating is something other than being hot, and becoming black is something other than being black. For hotness and blackness belong to the predicament of quality, which are understood without reference to another.

From what it is to suffer (pati), however, we understand only that [something] is impressed upon, and moved, and changed from one disposition into another, when heat is intensified or remitted. But when it comes to rest, it becomes a “such” (quale) through heat and is no longer a patient (one-who-suffers). Let this difference then be understood.

In this chapter each one of these accidents is divided, and it is proved that they are accidents.

Quantity is divided into two species, continuous and discrete. The continuous is divided into four: line, surface, body, and time.

A line is a length in which extension or measure is found only in one direction, and it exists in a body in potency. But when it comes into act, it is called a line.

A surface is extension in two directions, namely length and breadth, and it exists in a body in potency, nor does it come into act except through the cutting of the body; and then it is called a surface.

The concept (notion) of surface is the face that appears in the very cutting of the body.

A body is that which has three extensions. The face, therefore, which one touches, not considering anything further of the interior of the body except that [face] itself, is called surface, and it is an accident, because it was not [actually] there when the body existed [un-cut], but after the body has been cut, it appears in the body. This is to be understood of an accident.

And just as surface is understood as the cutting of the body, so a line is understood as the extremity of a surface and its cutting. But a point is understood as the extremity of a line and its cutting.

Now, since surface is an accident, it is clear that the line is even more deserving of the name accident.

It is true that a point does not have measure. For if it had one measure and one extension, it would become a line; if it had two, it would become a surface; but if three, it would become a body.

It is possible, however, to imagine line, surface, and body arising by a “point” of motion (puncione motus). For when a point is moved, a line comes forth from it; and when a line is moved, not in the direction in which it is extended, a surface comes forth from it; and when a surface is moved, not in the direction in which it is extended, a body comes forth from it. And all of this perhaps is thought to be true.

But that a line should come forth from the motion of a point is impossible, although this whole [account] is a matter of opinion; for a point is not moved unless there is first a place, and there is no place unless there is first a body.

Therefore body is prior to surface, and surface prior to line, and line prior to point; and the point is prior only in regard to the position of motion.

Time, moreover, is understood to be the measure of motion, of which we shall speak later.

Discrete quantity, on the other hand, is understood to be number, which likewise is an accident; for number arises from the repetition of units. And if the one and unity are accidents, then certainly number, which comes forth from them, is even more deserving of the name accident.

Discrete quantity and continuous quantity differ only in this one respect: that among the parts of the discrete there is found no common part to which the extremes are joined, for between the second and the third there is no continuity, nor is there between them some common part joining the extremes, as the point, which is imagined in common in the middle of the line, joins the two ends of the line; and as a line, imagined, joins the two ends of a surface; and as a surface, imagined, joins the two ends of a body; and as an instant joins the two extremes of time, namely past and future.

That unity is an accident is shown as follows.
Unity is either in water, or in a human, or in a horse, or in some other thing; but “water-ness” is one thing, and unity is another thing, from which together there comes to be one water, which when divided becomes two, but when joined is one. Therefore duality and unity alternate in it; water, then, is the subject, but unity and duality are accidents.

It is true, however, that one man cannot become two, because oneness is inseparable from him; but this does not remove the fact that for him it is an accident.

What is understood by “one” is this: that the subject is constituted in its essence and in its being without the positing of unity; and that is altogether to be understood as belonging to the realm of accident.

Concerning quality we shall set down two examples, namely colors and figures. We shall say, then, that blackness is an accident. For if it is supposed not to exist in a subject, then necessarily either it can be designated, and thus it will be divisible, or it cannot be designated, and then it will not be divisible.

If, however, it can neither be designated nor divided, then it is not set before sight nor apprehended by sight. But nothing else is understood by “blackness” except a disposition coming from the seer to some part which is apprehended by sight and receives division.

If, however, it is divisible since to be blackness is something other than to be divisible whiteness and blackness agree in being divisible and differ in whitening and in blackening.

By “body,” moreover, we understand nothing other than “the divisible.” Therefore blackness is said either to exist in the divisible, which is an accident, or itself to be that divisible, namely body which is absurd. For the truth of divisibility is the truth of corporeity, for nothing else is understood by “body” than this; but the truth of blackness is something other than the truth of divisibility, and not the very same as it.

It is true, however, that blackness is not distinguished from its subject by sensible designation, but by intelligible designation, as we have said; therefore it is an accident.

Figures also are accidents. For in wax the figures are altered while it remains in its own being. Therefore roundness, squareness, and triangularity are qualities and are accidents.

Now some have disagreed about the essence of the circle, saying that the circle does not exist, because one cannot imagine that there is a figure in whose middle a point is placed from which all the lines drawn to the circumference are equal.

But that the circle exists is proved by this, that the being of body is apprehended by sense. Now body is either composite or simple; the composite, indeed, exists only from the simple; therefore the simple must have being.

A simple [body] is that in which there are not diverse natures, but only one like nature, as the nature of water and of air. If, therefore, we imagine some measure of body in itself, then of necessity it either will have some figure of its own or not. But it is false that it should have no figure, for then it would be infinite; yet we have already posited for it some finite measure.

If, however, it has a figure, then it will be either spherical or square or one of the others; but it cannot have any figure except a spherical one, because the nature of a like thing in a like subject does not receive a diverse figure in such a way that in one part of it there is a straight line and in another an angle. Among figures, moreover, none is similar [in all parts] except the spherical one; therefore it is necessary that its figure be spherical.

And if a sphere is divided by a straight cut, then necessarily the cuts appear circular. It is clear, therefore, that it is possible for the circle to exist, which is the root of all figures.

Thus, then, it is evident that quantity and quality are accidents; and as for the remaining seven, there is no doubt that they are accidents, for they are nothing other than from the relation of one thing to another.

It is necessary, then, that there be something that can be referred to another. Action is the comparison of one thing to another according to an impression; hence it is necessary that there first be something that acts. Passion is the comparison of it to another from which it suffers.

And it is necessary that something exist before it suffers, and it is necessary that it exist before being in time, or in place, or in position. These, then, are the nine accidents.

Being, however, is said absolutely of ten things, which are the first genera of things: one of these is substance, and [the other] nine are accidents, which cannot be designated by a definition, because there is no genus more universal than they.

In a definition, however, genus and difference are joined together; therefore being and those [ten] are equal in that they do not have a definition. They do indeed receive a description, but being does not, because there is nothing better known than being by which being itself might be known.

But these ten are more obscure or less known, so that they can be described by something else that is better known than they; and these ten are called the ten predicaments (categories).

If, however, it is asked whether “being” is said of these ten univocally or equivocally, we shall answer that it is said neither univocally nor equivocally, although some have thought that it is said equivocally, and that accident and substance do not agree in being, since the being of substance is not understood as anything other than substance itself, and the being of quantity as nothing other than quantity itself. For “being” is a certain name that fits diverse things which do not agree in the understanding of the name, just as the name “dog” fits different meanings.

But this whole claim of theirs is false in two ways. One is that the statement “substance is a being” is an intelligible proposition; hence, if the being of substance were substance itself, then to say “substance is a being” would be the same as to say “substance is substance.”

When, however, we say “action and passion are not,” perhaps this will be true in some respect. But if we should say “action is not action,” or “passion is not passion,” this would never be believable. Yet if that which we call “being” were the same as “action,” then to say “action is not” would be the same as to say “action is not action.”

The other [way] is this: the intellect judges that concerning every real thing there is this division: either it is or it is not.

If, however, being contained nothing other than these ten predicaments, then the division would not be contained in two, nor would this expression [“is / is not”] be understood. Instead it would be necessary to say that a thing is either substance or quantity, and so on up to ten, and thus the division would be into ten, not into two.

But this is clear from what we have said, namely that the question “whether it is” by which we inquire about being is different from the one by which we ask “what it is”. And on this account we allow the question: “What thing has made color to be, and what thing has made there to be blackness in ink?”, but we do not allow the question: “What thing has made blackness to be a color, and what thing has made blackness to be blackness.”

Moreover, the difference between that-it-is and what-it-is is known by an intelligible, not a sensible, definition just as the difference between form and hyle (matter).

If they should say: “Since it is not equivocal, therefore this name ‘being’ is univocal with respect to the ten,” we shall answer that a name is not called univocal unless it fits many meanings in the same way, without any difference of strength and weakness, and without a before and after just as “animal” [is said] of man and horse, and “man” of Peter and of John; for it does not belong to one of them without the other, nor is it stronger or fuller in one than in another.

Being, however, belongs first to substance, and then to quantity and to quality by means of substance; and to the other predicaments being belongs by means of these two, quantity and quality. Thus, then, there befalls them a before and an after.

And the difference of strength and weakness is this: that the being of blackness, which is a permanent disposition, is not like the being of motion and of change and of time, which do not have permanence. Indeed, the being of motion, of time, and of hyle is weaker than the being of the others.

These ten, therefore, agree in being in one way and differ in being in another way, and because of this they stand midway between equivocal and univocal; and therefore a name of this sort, which is “being,” is called an ambiguous name, because it is fitted to all of them.

It is therefore clear that there is accidental being.

Therefore existence (esse) is an accident to all quiddities from outside, since being does not belong to them from themselves. And whatever inheres in something not from itself inheres in it from another; and for this reason the First Cause is a being without a quiddity added over and above, as we shall show. Therefore “being” is not the genus of any of the quiddities.

This very notion of “accident” likewise belongs, with respect to the nine predicaments, in a similar way. For each of them has in itself its own essence by which it is what it is. But accidentalness belongs to them in comparison to those things in which they exist; for the name of accidentality fits them with respect to their subjects, not according to that which they are in themselves.

And for this reason it is possible to imagine some of them and doubt about them whether they are accidents or not; but it is not possible to imagine some species and doubt that its genus belongs to it for one cannot imagine a man to be blackness and doubt that it is a color, nor a horse and doubt that it is an animal.

Likewise, this single name “accident,” although it fits all [the accidents] as the name “being” does, is nevertheless not essential to any quiddity; nor, therefore, is “being.” Neither accident nor unity is in any way a genus or a difference of any of the ten things.

We have therefore now divided being into substance and accident, and substance into four, and accident into nine. And some of the species of those nine we have divided, and we have shown that they are accidents. Let us, then, return to dividing being in other ways.

SECOND DIVISION

Being (ens) is divided into universal and particular.
We have already set down the definitions of these at the beginning of logic.
From now on we shall speak of their judgments, which are four, and which belong to them.

First Judgment

The first judgment is that the intention which is called universal has its being in intellects, not in singulars.

Some, hearing what we say namely, that all men are one in humanity and all blacknesses are one in blackness have supposed that universal blackness is some one thing that exists, and that universal man is some one thing that exists, and that universal soul is some one being, one in number, existing in natural singulars, as one father is [father] of many sons, and as one sun [shines] on many fields.

But this is pure error.

For if the universal soul were one in number and it were in Peter and in John and in the others, while Peter were wise and John foolish, it would then follow that one and the same soul is skilled and ignorant of the same thing at the same time, which is absurd.

Likewise, if the universal animal were one in number and it were in many individuals, then it would follow that one and the same animal is aquatic, walking on two feet, or on four, and flying which is absurd.

The being of the universal exists only in intellects, and its meaning is as follows.

The intellect receives the form of man and the certainty of it when some one singular is presented to it; afterwards, if it sees another, the impression is not renewed in it, but that which was there remains the same. Similarly, if it sees a third, or a fourth, and so on: without doubt, the first “depiction” that comes into the intellect from Peter stands in the same relation to all men. For individual men do not in any way differ in humanity.

But if after him it sees a wolf, then another quiddity and another depiction different from the first will come to be in it.

What is conceived from the individual Peter is a singular form in the intellect. But that this form is understood as universal comes from this, namely that its relation to every individual that is, and was, and will be, is one. And whichever one is first presented to the intellect, it will produce this depiction, and another that comes after will not increase it.

For example: suppose there are many seals, absolutely of the same image; if with one of them we imprint some wax, a form comes from it; and if on that same form we then press a second or a third seal, the first form will not be changed, nor will the subject be re-imprinted.

It is therefore said that the depiction which is in the wax is a universal depiction, because it is the depiction of all the seals in such a way that it fits all of them in one and the same way, and no one of them differs from another in its relation to that depiction. And this is the thing understood.

But if they should claim that one and the same depiction in number is in the silver seal, and in the gold seal, and in the iron seal, this is absurd unless perhaps they say that they are one in species; but numerically, the impression of each seal is one thing distinct from another. It is true, however, that their impression in the wax is one, and the depiction that comes into the wax from all of them is one.

Similarly, then, you must understand the “sealing” of the definitions of things in the intellect, and the sense of their universality.

The universal, therefore, precisely as it is universal, exists in intellects, not in singulars, since in external being, that is, in actual being, there is no “universal man.” The truth of humanity is in singulars, and it is in both intellects.

Second Judgment

A universal cannot have many singulars unless each one of them is distinguished from the other by a difference or by an accident.

For if universality is taken in itself, bare, without something superadded that is joined to it, we cannot imagine any numbering or particularity in it.

Two blacknesses cannot exist at the same time in the same subject; for blackness taken absolutely becomes two only if there is some diversity between them either of subjects (as two blacknesses in two subjects) or of times (as two blacknesses in the same subject at different times). But if the subject is one and the time is one, then no numbering will be imagined.

Likewise, two men will not be imagined unless one of them is distinguished from the other by something that is beyond bare, universal humanity, namely by place, shape, and so on. For if there is no diversity between them and they are two, then one may grant that each man is two or five and so on, and one number will not be distinguished from another and similarly for any blackness.

But it is clearly absurd, and this is proved as follows. If in one subject two blacknesses are supposed in such a way that one can say “this [one]” and “that [one]” and one is distinguished from the other, then what is said of that blackness, that it is blackness and that it is that blackness, is either one and the same, or it is not.

If it is one and the same so that its being blackness and its being that blackness are the same then whatever is said to be blackness will be that blackness. Thus the other blackness that we posited will also be that blackness. So there will not be any numbering there, nor will one say “this” and “that.”

But if what we call that blackness carries something more than what we call blackness, then something has undoubtedly been added to blackness; therefore one is other than the other because of that something that has been added to it.

It is therefore clear that it is impossible to number the singulars of the same universal unless some difference or some accident is added over the universal.

Hence, if the First Cause is one through itself without any composition of difference or accident, then certainly no duality can be imagined in it in any way.

Third Judgment

A difference is not placed within the “certitude” (determinate content) of the genus, nor in the essence of the more common universal intention in any way, but it causes that [genus] to have being.

But being is other than its essence.

This is made clear as follows. Humanity is not received into the “certitude” of animality, because the essence of animality is understood as complete and entire without humanity and equinity and the other differences unlike corporeity, such that if corporeity is thought absent, then the very essence of animality is understood to be destroyed.

For if humanity were a cause to animality for its being animality, as corporeity is a cause to it, then animality would not belong to the horse, since the horse is not a man, just as animality does not belong to that which is not a body. But the whole, complete animality belongs to the horse just as to the man.

Therefore differences do not enter into the essences of universal intentions. It is true, however, that they have the power to make those universals be, because “animal” does not have being except as horse or man or some other [species]. But “animal” is animal without equinity and humanity.

Being, then, is one thing, and quiddity another, as we have already said. And since this is true of difference, it is still more true of accident, without doubt. For since humanity does not enter into the essence of the determinate content of animality, it is quite clear that length and whiteness do not enter in any way.

Fourth Judgment

Whatever is accidental to something is caused. And its cause is either the essence of the subject itself (as the tendency to move downward in a stone, and to cool in water) or something other than the essence (as water’s being heated, or a stone’s being moved upward).

We say this only because this accident of an essence either is caused or is not. But if it is not caused, then it has being of itself. Yet whatever has being of itself is neither destroyed when something else is destroyed, nor posited when something else is posited; but an accident undoubtedly needs that to which it is an accident in order to have its being. Therefore it does not have being of itself, and so it is caused.

And its cause is either in the essence of the subject or outside the essence of the subject; and this division is complete, without doubt.

Here, then, is the demonstration. However the cause may be, whether inside the subject or outside, it is without doubt necessary that it exist beforehand in order to be the cause of another. Hence it is impossible that essence be the cause of being.

Every essence (quiddity) therefore has being over and above itself; and the cause of that being is something beyond its essence (quiddity). For the cause must be in order that it may make something else “have to be.” Essence (quiddity), however, does not precede being. How, then, will it be the cause of that being?

It follows, therefore, that if in the order of being there is something that is not caused, then what is asked about it by the question “whether it is” (an est) is the same as what is asked about it by “what it is” (quid est), because its being and that which it is are one and the same. For if its being were other than it, then that being would be something accidental to it, and conditioned by something other than that which it itself is; therefore it would be caused. But we have posited that it is not caused. Thus this is absurd.

If, however, it is asked since the universal intention is sometimes special with respect to singulars (as man is with respect to Peter and John), and sometimes general (as animal is with respect to horse and man) how is the distinction and knowledge between them to be made? That is: which universal is special, such that it is divided only by accidents, and which is general, such that it is divided only by substantial differences?

We answer: whenever some universal presents itself to you, and you want to restrict it to some singular, and to restrict it you must add to it something non-accidental, then that universal is general. But if you need only something accidental, then that universal is special. Thus the knowledge of the distinction between general and special is had from the knowledge of the difference between the essential and the accidental, as we have given examples.

For when we say “four” or “five,” in order to restrict four we do not need to add to it anything except “nuts” or “men” or other such things; for these are accidental to fourness and to all numbers, and they are not essential to them.

We call that essential without the prior understanding of which the thing to which it is essential cannot be understood as perfected. But to understand “four” it is not necessary to look to nuts, or horses, or other numerables.

When, however, we say “number,” by that we cannot understand any one determinate number; rather we naturally inquire and want to know which number it is, that is, whether it is five or some other. But once it is five, we do not afterwards need anything except to specify by it some numbered things; and this is accidental with respect to number unlike the “five” itself, which is not something added on top of the numbering as an accident supervening upon it, but is the termination of the numbering of that number.

These intentions are easy to conceive in the mind, but difficult to express in words, because there is an inward complexity in words. Let the consideration, then, be directed to the intellect, not to the words.

These are the judgments about the universal.

THIRD DIVISION

Being (esse) is divided into one and many.
Let us therefore set out the divisions of one and of many, and the things that follow from them.

“One” is said in one way truly and properly, and in another way improperly.

“One” is said truly and properly of any designated singular, and this in three ways.

1. The first and truest sense of “one”

First, something is called one in the truest way when it is that singular one in which there is no multiplicity, neither in potency nor in act, as a point and the essence of the Creator.

For God is not divided in act, nor is He receptive of division. He is therefore free from multiplicity in being, in possibility, in potency, and in act He whose name is exalted.

He, therefore, is truly one.

2. The second sense: one by continuity

Secondly, something is called one by continuity (unum continuatione), in which there is no multiplicity in act, but [only] in potency, because it is receptive of multiplicity; as when one says: “This line is one and two,” and “this body is one and two bodies.”

For if there is a cut (division) made in them, it will be said that there is duality in them. But if it is one continuous whole of the same kind, it will be called one line or one body and one water, and the like, because in them there is no multiplicity nor separation in act, although they are receptive of multiplicity.

And every “one” of this sort may perhaps be thought not to be truly one, because a potency that is close to act is thought to be, as it were, in act. But in truth it is one, and the multiplicity in it is in potency.

3. The third sense: one by binding (composition)

Thirdly, something is called one according to binding (unum secundum ligationem), in which there is multiplicity in act, as one bed, and any singular thing composed of diverse parts, as the composition of a man’s members of bone and flesh and veins.

This indeed is one, in that it is called one bed and one man, although there is multiplicity in it in act with respect to its parts not like one water and one body which is similar throughout.

And this is the difference between these two modes in which the name “one” is truly said.

4. “One” said improperly (of many under one universal)

“One” is said improperly when the name “one” is used of many things that are under one universal. And these are five:

One in genus, as when we say “man and horse are one in animality.”

One in species, as when it is said “Peter and John are one in humanity.”

One in a common accident, as when it is said “snow and camphor are one in whiteness.”

One by proportion, as when it is said “the proportion of king to city and of soul to body is one and the same.”

One in subject, as of sugar which is white and sweet; it is said “the white and the sweet are one,” because their subject is one.

“One,” therefore, is said in eight senses altogether.

5. Subdivisions of “one” in the accidental order

Then “one in accident” is divided according to the division of the accidents:

If the unity is according to the accident of quantity, it is called equality.

If according to quality, it is called likeness (similarity).

If according to position (situs), it is called equidistance.

If according to proprietas (proper character, “suchness”), it is called such-ness (talitas).

And after you know that “one” is said in eight ways only, then “many,” which is opposed to it, will without doubt be said in just as many ways.

6. What follows upon one and upon many

Of the things consequent upon one, one is identity (identitas).
For when the thing is one and its names or its ways of comparison are different, it is called “the same” (idem), as when it is said, “ensis is the same as gladius” (sword and blade), and “Peter of John is the same as ‘the son of John’.”

But the things consequent upon multiplicity are otherness (alietas), diversity (diversitas), and opposition (oppositio); likewise equality, similarity, equidistance, and such-ness; for these are not understood except in two or more things. Therefore they are consequents of multiplicity.

7. The four kinds of opposition

We must now show the species of opposition, which are four:

Opposition of affirmation and negation, as “man is,” “man is not.”

Opposition of relation, as father and son, lord and servant; one of these is opposed to the other.

Opposition of privation and habit, as that which is between motion and rest.

Opposition of contraries, as heats and colds.

The difference between the opposition of contraries and that of privation and habit is this:

Privation is nothing else than the removal of a thing from a subject only, without the positing of something else. Thus rest is nothing other than privation of motion. Hence, if blackness could be removed without the succession of another color, that would indeed be privation. But because, when it recedes, redness or whiteness or some other color at once comes in, there is something more there beyond the mere removal of blackness. Privation, therefore, is nothing but the removing of the thing itself.

A contrary, however, is that which is posited when the other is removed, and for this reason it is said that one cause is not apt to produce two contraries from itself. Two contraries need two causes. But habit and privation both have one and the same cause; and if this one cause is present, it brings about the due habit; if, however, it is absent or taken away, it makes privation be owed (i.e. present).

Thus the cause of privation is the privation of the cause of being, just as the cause of rest is the privation of the cause of motion.

The property of the opposition of relation is this: that each of the relatives is known when the other is known not like heat, which can be known without the knowledge or comparison of cold, nor like motion, which can be known without the knowledge or comparison of rest.

The opposition of affirmation and negation differs from the opposition of contraries and of privation by the fact that it exists only in speech/proposition (in dispositione tantum), and it embraces all that is. The name “contrary,” however, does not belong except to that whose subject and the subject of its contrary are one; nor is this enough, unless they are such that they cannot be at the same time in the same subject, but only in succession, and that they are at the greatest distance from one another.

Thus blackness and whiteness are contraries, not blackness and redness. For redness is a color proceeding from whiteness toward blackness; it is therefore a middle [color], and thus not that which is farthest from them.

Sometimes, moreover, between two contraries there are many intermediates, one of which is nearer to one extreme than another; and sometimes there is no middle between them.

A contrary, then, shares its subject with its contrary; likewise habit shares its subject with privation. This is not required in the case of negation, where sometimes they share only in genus and not in subject, as masculinity and femininity, which do not succeed one another in the same individual.

8. A common error about “par” and “impar”

Some may perhaps err when they set down a genus, then take the negation of the intention under it, and add to it a difference or a proprium, and give it an affirmative name, and think that it is a contrary; as with number, which is divided into even (par) and odd (impar).

For “odd,” which among the Latins is a privative name, among the Arabs is an affirmative name, fard, which is interpreted “odd” (compar). But this is an error, for their subject is not one: the even will never be odd, and the number contained under the even will never be contained under the odd.

Between them there is the opposition of affirmation and negation. For “even” means nothing else than a number that is divisible into two equal parts; and “odd” means nothing else than a number that is not divisible into two equal parts.

But this “is not divisible” is pure negation. Yet they have imposed on it the name “odd” (fard) over against “even” and think it to be opposed as a contrary.

9. Can one contrary have many contraries?

If someone should ask whether one contrary can have several contraries, we shall answer:

Since contraries are nothing else than things that succeed one another in the same subject in such a way that they are at the greatest distance from each other, it follows from this that one contrary has only one contrary.

For one of them is at the ultimate extreme of distance from the other, and so it is one, without doubt.

FOURTH DIVISION

Being is divided into prior and posterior. But this priority and posteriority also belong to the essential accidents of being, and it is said that God is before the world.

Now “before” or “prior” is said in five ways.

The first, which is the more obvious, is called prior in time, and this kind of “before” is most common in human speech.

The second is either prior in order or prior in position, as when it is said, “Rome is before Jerusalem” for someone going from Gaul to Jerusalem, or “this line is prior to that one with respect to the proposed endpoint”; or prior in genus, as when it is said that animality is prior to humanity, if you begin from the higher [genera]. But if conversely you begin from the lower, animality is prior to corporeity, just as Jerusalem is prior to Rome for someone coming to Rome from India.

The third is said to be prior in dignity, as Peter is prior to Paul and the other apostles.

The fourth is prior by nature, such that when that which is prior is destroyed, that which is posterior is destroyed, but when that which is posterior is destroyed, that which is prior is not destroyed as one is prior to two. For if we suppose the one to be destroyed, the two does not remain, since every “two” is nothing but “one and one.” But if we suppose the two to be destroyed, it does not follow that the one is destroyed.

And when we say that one is prior to two, we do not mean priority in time, since the one can exist together with the two, even though the one is understood as prior to the two.

The fifth is prior in essence, as that which exists together with something else which is not except through it, whereas it itself does not have being through that other as a cause is prior to what is caused, just as the motion of the hand is prior to the motion of the ring. For we say that when the hand is moved, the ring is moved, but not that when the ring is moved, the hand is moved, even though we know that they are together in time.

But this priority is a priority of causality, of bringing it about that something must exist.

FIFTH DIVISION

Being is divided into cause and caused.

Whatever has being through another is caused; and that by which it has being is its cause.

The cause of the being of a whole which is made up of parts is the being of the parts and their conjunction – not conversely, as though the being of the whole were the cause of the being of the parts. Thus oxymel is not the cause of honey and vinegar, but honey and vinegar are the cause of it, since it is composed out of them.

That a part is prior in time to its whole is clear. And even if they are not separated in time – as the hand in relation to the man – still, they stand thus in their way of being: the part is prior to the whole.

Whatever, therefore, is a part of some whole is a cause of that whole.

So cause is divided into that which is a part of the essence of the caused, and that which is outside it.

That which is a part of the caused is divided into:

that whose being does not follow (or accompany) the being of the caused, as the being of the wood does not follow the being of the bed;

and that whose being does follow upon the essence of the caused, as the form follows upon the essence of the bed.

For when the form is present, the bed must be; not so the wood, although the bed is a certain whole which does not have being except from the conjunction of the wood and the form.

Whatever, then, is related to the thing caused as wood is to the bed will be called the material cause; and whatever is related to the thing caused as the form to the bed will be called the formal cause.

That which is outside [the caused] is divided into:

that from which the thing is, as the carpenter with respect to the bed – and this is called the efficient cause, like the father with respect to the son, and fire with respect to heat;

and that for the sake of which the thing is, not that from which it is – and this is called the perfective and final cause, as the final cause of a bench is to sit well.

The property of the final cause is that on account of it the other causes become causes.

For unless there were proposed in the mind of the craftsman the form of the bench – which is the aptitude for sitting – on account of the need for sitting, the craftsman would not act, nor would the wood be the material cause of the bed, nor would the form come into it.

The final cause, therefore, wherever it is among all the causes, is the cause of causes.

The being of the bench thus depends on the wood, on the craftsman, on the form, and on the need of sitting. If any one of these causes is removed, the removal of the bench follows.

The final cause is last in being, and first and preceding in intention.

The efficient cause acts either by nature, as fire when it burns and the sun when it gives light, or by will, as a man when he walks.

Now every agent in its action intends something. And it is necessary that, for that which is intended, its being and its not-being are not equal.

For the meaning of intention here is this: to bring it about that something be, which is better that it be than that it not be. If it were not so, it would not be called an intention.

For whatever, as far as the agent is concerned, is equal in being and not-being, is never chosen to be rather than not to be for the sake of any usefulness; and whatever is of that sort is not intended. And the question still remains, namely: why is being chosen rather than non-being? And it does not rest until “intention” is named.

For intention is nothing else than to make it so that, as far as the agent is concerned, it is rather that the action be than that it not be. If it were not more fitting that it be than that it not be, then being and not-being would be equal, and the agent would not incline to one of them rather than to the other.

But whoever acts for some intention is imperfect. For the being of that which is intended is better for him than its not-being. Hence there is some good which he does not have and which he intends to have; and when it comes, he will be perfected. Therefore, of himself, without that good, he is imperfect.

If someone were to say that sometimes an agent acts not for an advantage that comes to himself but to another, he is in error. For that usefulness should come to another is, as regards the agent, rather [better] than that it should not come.

If, then, it is better for him that usefulness come to another, then by what he gains for the other he already gains for himself something that is better for him and without which he previously was. He was therefore imperfect.

But if making usefulness come to another were not useful to him, then the question returns, and it will be asked absolutely why he made that useful thing for the other.

Every agent, therefore, has an intention which perfects him and removes the deficiency that was in him by reason of the perfection that comes to him.

If, then, it is possible that there be an essence from which that which is caused proceeds, and from which – inasmuch as it is of itself an essence – there flows being for something other than itself altogether without intention, then such a cause acting in this way is higher and more noble than an agent acting by intention and choice.

Whenever, moreover, someone becomes an agent who previously was not an agent, this must come about because of some newness – of condition, or of nature, or of will, or of intention, or of power, or of some other disposition.

For if the dispositions of the agent were to remain as they were, and nothing new came to the agent, neither in himself nor outside himself, down to that point, then certainly it would not be more fitting for the agent that the action be than that it not be, but non-being would continue always without ceasing.

For if the dispositions were as they were before, it would necessarily follow that non-being would always remain. For if non-being remained before this, because there was no chooser who would give being, then, now that being is, its cause must be a chooser of being.

For if no new chooser came to be, nor were there any chooser, just as there was none before, then non-being would necessarily remain, as it did.

We shall also bring in some further points to make this clear – namely, what is truly necessary, that cause is divided into essential cause and accidental cause.

But an accidental cause is called a cause improperly, because the thing caused does not proceed from it, but from another; and that other would not be a cause of the due being of the caused except together with this one.

Thus he who removes the column that supports a roof is said to “bring down the roof,” which is not strictly true; for the cause of the roof’s falling is its weight, but it is meanwhile held up by the support of the column. The remover of the column therefore makes it fit to fall, and it falls by what is properly its own action.

Or again, we say that scammony “cools,” because it removes the choler which was preventing nature from being cooled. Nature, then, will be the one that grows cool when that which hinders has been removed; and scammony will be the cause of the removal of choler, not of the cooling which naturally follows upon the removal of choler.

SIXTH DIVISION

Being is divided into finite and infinite.

“Infinite,” however, is said in four ways, of which two are not real, and two are truly found to be so by argument.

It is said, for example, that the motion of the heaven does not have an end, that is, it does not have a beginning – and this already is shown by argument.

It is also said that human souls which are separated from bodies are infinite; and this is necessarily true, if finitude is removed from time and from the motion of the heaven, which is the removal of a beginning.

The third way is when one says that body and spaces are infinite from above downwards; but this is also false.

The fourth is when one says that causes are infinite, because a thing has a cause, and that cause has a cause, and so on, and thus one never arrives at a first cause which has no cause; but this too is false.

For the sense of this [claim of infinity] is that every number is understood as many things together, which have an order by nature, and which have a “beyond” and a “before” – in which way there is infinity, as in causes which are said to be infinite.

But the order between cause and caused is necessarily natural, and if this is removed, that which is caused does not remain. Similarly, bodies and spaces are capable of being ordered, because some of them are necessarily nearer than others when you begin from one side; but this ordering is by position, not by nature. The difference between these was already given in the treatise on before and after.

Now, wherever one of these (order by nature or order by situation) is present without the other, infinity will not be removed from it, as from the motion of the heaven, which does indeed have order and progression, since all of its parts are not at once in one disposition.

Therefore, when it is said that the motion of the heaven does not have an end, we do not mean by this that finitude is removed from the motions that exist, but from all of them taken together – those that are, that were, and that will be.

Likewise, we grant that human souls, which are separable from bodies through death, are infinite in number, even though they exist together; for there is no natural order among them such that, if removed, souls would cease to be, since none of them is a cause of another, but they are together without a before and after in nature and in position.

“Before” and “after” are understood in them only according to the time of their creation. But in their essences, insofar as they are essences and souls, there is no ordering in any way, but they are equal in being – in contrast to spaces, bodies, cause and caused.

That it is possible for souls not to have an end, and for motion not to have a beginning, we shall say later, and we shall set out whatever is brought in the proofs thereof.

That bodies are not infinite, nor spaces, nor anything that has ordering by position or by nature, we shall now show.

That it is impossible for lengths to be infinite is shown in two ways, and the first is as follows.

Let there be a line g–d infinite on the side of g, and let there be a finite line a–b, which is moved in its circle toward g of the line d–g, until it becomes parallel to it. That it can be moved in this way is necessary.

Then if it is moved from that parallel position closer toward the line g–d, it is then necessary that it be placed under some point of the line g–d. The first point under which it is placed is the point of parallelism; then it is placed under the remaining points until it is placed parallel on the other side – but this is impossible.

For if we understand it to incline, as it departs from the parallel position, without being placed under [a point], this is impossible; and for it to be placed under [points] is also impossible, because placing-under happens first under one point. But in an infinite line, there is no first point.

Whatever point is taken as the first point of the line under which it is placed, necessarily before that it has been placed under others, and it cannot be placed under all the points unless it is placed under an infinity. Therefore none of the other points is first, under which it is first placed – and this is impossible.

And this proof is a geometrical one, necessary to show that lengths are not infinite, whether they are understood in a plenum or in a void.

The second proof is this.

If it is possible for there to be an infinite line, then let the line a–b be infinite, infinite on the side of b, in which we imagine two points g and d.

If d–b is finite, then when g–d is added to it, certainly g–b will be finite.

If, however, d–b is infinite, then if we imagine d–b laid upon g–b, either they will both extend together equally toward b, neither exceeding the other – which is impossible, for then the lesser would be equal to the greater, since d–b is less than g–b – or d–b will be shorter than g–b and will be exceeded by the line g–b.

Therefore, the line d–b is finite toward the side b, at the point where it is exceeded by the line g–b. But the line g–b exceeds the line d–b only by the addition of the line g–d, which is finite.

But when something finite is added to something finite, the whole becomes finite; therefore g–b is necessarily finite.

That causes are not infinite is proved as follows.

If we set them out in such a way that some are causes of others, then it is necessary either that:

we arrive at a cause which is not caused – and this is the first cause, and then causes are finite;

or that we do not arrive at a first cause, but they go on to infinity.

But all those infinite causes without doubt have being, since they are together. And all of them, insofar as they are all together, must be either possible, or caused, or necessary.

It is false, however, that they are necessary, since the totality of them comes from individual caused things; and what comes from something caused is not necessary.

It is therefore necessary that the totality be caused, and that it need a cause by which it comes to be – a cause which lies outside the totality.

For, since we include each individual of that totality within the totality, it is truly said of the totality in which the individuals are contained that it is caused.

It therefore needs a cause which is outside [it], and is not itself caused. This, then, is the first cause, and thus the causes are finite.

This, therefore, is what we say about the finite and the infinite.

SEVENTH DIVISION

Being is divided into that which is in potency and that which is in act.
The name of potency and act is used in various ways, some of which we do not need here.

Potency is divided into power of acting and power of being acted upon.
The power of acting is that by which a thing that is about to act is fitted to be an agent, as the heat of fire [fits it] to heat water.
The power of being acted upon is that by which a thing is fitted to suffer or receive, as the softness and flexibility of wax [fit it] to receive a form.

Potency is opposed to act in another way as well. For whatever truly is is said to be in act, and we do not understand “effect” here as in the preceding passages. For it is said that the essence of the First Principle is in act in every way, and that there is nothing in it in potency.

Action, according to the first intention, does not belong to it inasmuch as it is what it is. For it is He who simply is. But the potency opposed to this action is the possibility that a thing be, before it exists; meanwhile, so long as it is not in act, it is said to be in potency.

And we allow ourselves to say that something is “in potency,” although what we call “being” here is spoken of improperly; as when it is said that wine “inebriates.” For as long as the wine is in the flask, drunkenness is said to be in potency in the wine, according to common usage. It does not yet inebriate, but because drunkenness can come about from it, it is said to be in it in potency.

And in the same way, a body is said to be divisible because division is in it in potency, since in truth division is not in it unless division actually occurs in it, either by cutting the body or by separation of its parts.

The distinction between potency and act is completed by two judgments.

First Judgment

The first is that the judgment concerning this potency, this ultimate possibility which we understand as the possibility of existing, requires a supporting subject and matter in which it exists. From this it follows that whatever begins [to be] is preceded by matter.

Therefore it is not possible that prime matter began to be, but it is eternal. For whatever begins to be, before it begins is in potency that is, before it begins, it can begin to be. Thus the possibility of beginning precedes the beginning-to-be.

Now this possibility is either a thing that exists, or it is an interpretation of something that is not. If it is an interpretation of something that is not, then that which begins had no possibility; therefore it was not possible that it should be; therefore it was impossible that it be. But if it was impossible that it be, then it never is which is absurd.

It is clear, then, that possibility is a thing that is, which the intellect judges to be. But it is impossible that this [possibility] should not either be a substance existing through itself, or an indication of a thing that needs a subject. It is false that possibility is a substance existing through itself, since possibility is a designation relative to that which is possible, and cannot be understood to exist by itself.

Therefore it must have a subject in which it exists. Thus the meaning of the being of possibility is: a designation of a subject as apt to receive a change, as when one says: “It is possible for this boy to be taught”; thus, knowledge is possible for this boy. In the same way: “This semen is able to become a man”; therefore the possibility of having humanity is a designation in the semen. And: “This air is able to become water.”

But if we were to suppose that something begins to be without preceding matter, then the statement “that which began to be was possible to begin to be before it began to be” would signify nothing; for possibility is a designation of the thing that comes to be. But a thing, before it exists, cannot be the subject of any designation.

Therefore the possibility of every thing that begins to be is in its matter; the potency of its beginning is in its subject. And this is what we mean when we say that something is in potency, as when we say “knowledge is in the boy in potency” and “the palm-tree is in the seed in potency.”

Potency, moreover, is sometimes near, sometimes remote.
For semen is a man in near potency; and earth is also a man in remote potency, because earth does not become a man except after many changes.

Second Judgment

The second judgment is that the power of acting is divided in two ways:

either it is for acting only and not for its opposite, as the power of fire is for burning and is not for not burning;

or it is for acting and for its opposite, that is, for refraining, as the power of a man is for moving and for resting.

The first is called natural power; the second is called voluntary power.

When to this second power there is added a firm will, and there is nothing that hinders, then action will without fail come forth from it, following naturally, as from the first power. For when there is both ability and firm willing that is, when the resolve to act is now fixed and yet action does not follow, this can only happen because of something that impedes.

For when the power of acting and the power of being acted upon come together and both are perfect, passion (the effect, the undergoing) necessarily follows.

From every cause, its effect follows in every way according to what is due. What does not ought to be caused by its cause, is not. For as long as non-being is still possible because the cause does not yet have all its conditions that thing is not.

But as soon as all the conditions of the cause are present, the being of the effect is determined, and it becomes impossible that it not be, since that which makes it ought-to-be is present.

If, however, that which ought to be does not come forth, but is delayed, this happens only through:

a defect of its nature, if it is a natural [effect], or

a defect of its will, if it is voluntary, or

the absence of its essence, if its action is by its essence.

And meanwhile, so long as what ought to come forth does not, the cause is not in act but in potency. It needs something else by which it will be drawn from potency into act.

When that [something else] is present, then it becomes necessary for it to go out from potency into act.

EIGHTH DIVISION

Being is divided into that which ought to be, or is necessary to be, and that which is possible to be.

From this we understand that the being of everything that is, either:

depends on something other than itself, in such a way that, if that other is supposed not to exist, this thing does not come to be – as, for example, the being of a bench depends on the wood, the carpenter, the form, and the convenience of sitting. For if we suppose any one of these four to be lacking, it necessarily follows that the bench does not exist;

or else

its being in no way depends on anything other than itself, in such a way that, even if everything besides it is supposed not to exist, it nevertheless does not follow that it does not exist. For it is sufficient to itself.

Now the philosophers have agreed to call the first kind “possible”, and the second “owed-to-be” (debitum) or “necessary-to-be”.

We shall therefore say:

Whatever exists whose being is from itself and not from another, that is what is owed to be or necessary to be;

whereas whatever exists not having its being from itself is either forbidden in itself – and it is impossible ever to be – or possible in itself.

What is owed in being (debitum essendi) is necessary to be;
what is forbidden to be is necessarily not to be;
what is possible is that which is not followed of necessity either by being or by not-being.

Whatever is possible in itself, once it has being, has its being from something other than itself, without doubt. For if it had being from itself, then it would be owed and not possible.

Now being from another has three aspects.

One is this: if that from which it is – namely, its cause – is supposed to exist, then the thing caused becomes owed to be, since it has been shown beforehand that the being of the caused ought to be when the cause exists.

Another: if the cause is supposed not to exist, then the thing caused becomes forbidden. For if it existed, it would then exist through itself, without a cause – and so it would be owed through itself.

A third aspect is when we do not consider whether its cause exists or not, but consider the thing itself in itself alone; then it will, from itself, have the third member, namely possibility.

And this is as follows:

The cause of the being of four is the being of two and two. For if we consider “two and two” as not existing, then the being of “four” in the world is destroyed. If, however, we consider them as existing, then it is owed that “four” exist. But if we do not consider the twos, and consider instead only the essence of four (essentia quaternarii), we shall find that “four” is possible in itself, namely in that it is not necessary that four exist or not exist.

Whatever, therefore, is possible in itself does not get its being except from its cause; and for as long as it is merely possible to be from its cause, it will not be. But once, from its cause, it has become owed to be, it immediately is. For as long as it was merely possible to be, its non-being remained.

Hence there must be a removal of “possibility” – not that possibility which is in the thing itself (for that is not the cause that must be removed), but that possibility which is on the side of its cause, which is then converted into owedness: that is, all the conditions must be present and the cause must operate as it ought in order to be a cause.

Now we must recognize the root of the possible, upon which we shall establish something great, namely:

if the world is eternal, can it be the product (factura) of the Most High God or not?

We know that no possible thing has being except through something other than itself, which is its maker (factor). Concerning that which is called “maker,” two things are understood:

One, that it begins [the being], that is, draws the thing from non-being into being, as when someone constructs a house which did not previously exist – and this is clear.

The other, that the being of the thing is through it, as the being of light is through the sun; and the sun is called, in a natural way, the maker (factor) of light.

Those, however, who have said that to act is nothing other than to begin, perhaps imagined that once the thing that is made has its being, it no longer needs a maker, so that even if the maker did not exist, the thing made would nonetheless not cease to be.

And perhaps someone will presume to say that even if God is supposed not to exist, it does not follow from this that the world does not exist, once it already has being. And they try to show this by an example and by a reason.

The example is this: the builder of a house, after the construction of the house, does no harm to the house if he dies, nor is the house destroyed by his absence.

The reason is this: that which is not yet needs a giver of being; but that which already is does not need a giver of being.

But the example just given is false, because the builder of the house is not the cause of the being of the house except in an improper way; rather, he is the cause of a motion by his hand. For this motion is the cause of the movements of the parts of the house with respect to one another, and the form of the house is caused by these movements.

The coming-to-be of the form ceases when the movements of those parts of the house cease.

As for the statement that “the form of the house remains”, its meaning is this: a part does not rest where it is placed except because it is heavy, since it tends downward; and what is beneath it is compressed and hard, and thus prevents it from going further.

The cause, therefore, is both its heaviness and the compression of what is under it. If that compression were removed, the form of the house would be destroyed.

Likewise, a wall, although it is compacted out of clay, nevertheless owes the persistence of its shape to the dryness of the clay; for this is what keeps its shape. If a wall were built out of some flowing substance inside a concave mould, once that mould were removed, the form of the wall would be destroyed because of the loss of dryness.

Therefore the builder is not the maker (factor) of the house in the strict sense.

Similarly, the father is not the strict maker of the son, but is the cause of motion on account of the act of intercourse; for this motion is the cause of the movement of the two semen toward the womb. Then the causes of the coming of the human form into the semen are many, which are in the very essence of the two semen, and have being together with the human form; but the cause of the soul is a cause which always has being.

Therefore we ought not to rely on this example.

The reason they introduce – namely that “whatever has being does not need a giver of being” – is true, but it does need a preserver of its being.

This is made clear as follows. Everything that has begun to be has two states: one, that now it is; the other, that before, it was not. Likewise the maker has two states: one, that now being is from him; the other, that before this, being was not from him.

Let us therefore consider that, since the product (factura) depends on the maker, it must depend either:

with respect to its being which now is, or

with respect to its non-being which preceded, or

with respect to both.

But it is false that it depends with respect to its non-being, for that non-being which preceded has absolutely no relation or reference to the maker, since the maker does nothing at all in it.

And it is also false that it depends with respect to both. For once it is established that the product does not depend on the maker with respect to its non-being, yet it must nevertheless depend on the maker; therefore there remains no way in which it depends except with respect to its being.

That, therefore, which depends on the maker depends on him according to its being, not according to its non-being.

If someone says that it depends on him indeed according to its being, but in such a way that a non-being precedes – that is, that it depends on him as to a being that comes after non-being – we reply:

The maker does not impress in such a way that the product has being after non-being, even though this kind of being cannot exist except after non-being, because for it, being is after non-being.

For if the maker wished to give it being not after non-being, this would not be possible for him, because its being-after-non-being is not due to the positing of anything. The impressing of the one who posits is only upon the being of the thing.

It is true that the maker can refrain from acting and can not give being, but to make its being not-after-non-being is impossible.

Therefore, that which has begun to be needs a maker only with respect to its being, since in this respect alone it is possible; but its being-after-non-being, that is, its necessary being, is owed and not possible, and for that it does not need a maker.

Since, then, the product depends on the maker only insofar as it has being, it follows that as long as its being endures, it needs the maker and depends on him – that is, its being is on account of him and together with him in all its dispositions, just as the being of the day is on account of the sun, and together with the sun, in all its states.

The product also has two states, as we have said; and the maker likewise has two, as we have said. The fact that the maker is a cause is either:

insofar as something other than himself already is from him, or

insofar as it is not yet from him, but later comes to be from him.

But it is true that the maker is a cause insofar as something other than himself already is from him, not insofar as it previously was not and afterwards is. For its being was not previously from him simply because he was not then its cause.

That its being was not from him before comes from the fact that he was not its cause, not from the fact that he was its cause and maker.

Thus, when a man at first does not will that a thing exist which exists only by his will, and later wills that it exist, then, when the thing willed already exists, it exists only insofar as it is now willed; and the will is now present, not insofar as the will is something possessed “after” willing.

Therefore, that a thing be is one thing, and to make it be is another; and similarly, that something be a cause and a maker is one thing, and that it become a cause and maker is another.

Thus, making something be after non-being stands over against becoming a cause and maker when previously it was not; and likewise, already-being stands over against being a cause and maker.

Whoever, therefore, understands of that which is made that it begins to be after not-being, should likewise understand of the maker that he becomes a cause after he was not [so]; he is thus changed into causality, because the thing caused is changed into being.

Whoever, therefore, understands of that which now is that it is only from a maker, ought also to understand of the maker that he is a cause of being (causa essendi), not a mere maker of “coming-to-be” (faciendi esse).

Now, when something is cause of being for another, this very fact of being cause is something added above its essence – namely, its being a maker (esse factorem).

If it is a cause that is unceasing and everlasting, it will also be an unceasing, everlasting maker. But if it is a momentary cause, it will likewise be a momentary maker; and conversely, if it is a maker, so also it is a cause of the same sort.

It is true, however, that ordinary people do not understand the difference between a thing’s being a maker and its becoming a maker, and because of this they imagine what they imagine.

From this it follows that the thing caused, whether it is unceasing and everlasting, or momentary in all its dispositions, exists only while the cause exists. For it is not sufficient unto itself in being without that cause. If the cause and maker are removed, the thing caused and the product will certainly be removed.

But if the cause is eternal, the product will be eternal; for its dependence on that [cause] is insofar as it has being, not insofar as it began to be – whose sense is “being after non-being”, as has been said.

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SECOND TREATISE

We have already said that the being of any entity that exists either depends on something other than itself, so that if that other is supposed not to be, the removal of this [entity] follows upon its removal, or it does not depend [on another].

If it does depend, we call it possible.
If it does not depend, we call it “owed-to-be in itself” (debitum per se), which is necessary in itself;
and about this twelve things are to be said.

1. It is not an accident

First: this [necessary being] is not an accident.

For then it would depend on a body, and its destruction would follow upon the destruction of the body.
But we have defined necessary-to-be as that which in no way depends on anything else.

Now an accident is something possible,
and every possible has its being from something other than itself, which is its cause.
Therefore it is caused without doubt.

2. It is not a body

Second: it is not a body, and this for two reasons.

Every body is quantitatively divisible into parts.
Therefore its whole depends on its parts; and if we suppose those parts to be destroyed, its destruction necessarily follows – as the destruction of a man follows necessarily, if we understand his parts to be destroyed.

And we have already said that every collection or whole is caused by its parts.
Therefore it cannot be granted that the necessary being is composed of parts.

For if we are asked why ink (incaustum) exists, we will say:
because there are galls, vitriol, and water combined, and from all these things joined together ink comes to be.
These parts, then, are the cause of the composite.
In the same way, the parts of every composite are the cause of the composite.

Further: it has already been established that body is composed of form and matter (hyle).
If we suppose the matter to be destroyed, the body is destroyed;
or if we suppose the form to be destroyed, the body likewise is destroyed.

But by owed being we mean that whose removal does not follow from the removal of something else outside it, but that the removal of this being follows only if we suppose it itself not to exist.

3. It is neither form nor matter

Third: the necessary being is not like form, because form depends on matter.
If we suppose matter, which is together with it, not to exist, then form will not exist.

Nor is it like matter (hyle), which is the subject of form and does not have being without form. For matter is not in act except together with form; and if form is not, then it follows that matter is not.

Therefore it too depends on something else.

4. In it, what it is and its being are the same

Fourth: its being (esse) is not something other than that which it is.
It is necessary that its being and what it is be one and the same.

But it has been said above that for a thing, its being is other than what the thing itself is.
And the being about which we ask “whether it is” (an est) is an accident of that which the thing is – namely, of that about which we ask “what it is” (quid est).

Now every accident of something is caused; for if it were a being through itself, it would not be an accident of another.
And every accident of another depends on something else, since it exists only through that other or together with it.

But the cause of being must be either:

that which the thing itself is, or

something other.

If it is other, then the being is accidental and caused, and therefore it will not be necessary-to-be.

But it is false to say that what the thing is through itself should be the cause for itself of its own being.
For what is not is not the cause of what is.
What the thing is, is not prior to this being; how then will it be its cause?

And if what the thing is had a being prior to this being, then it would not need a second being; and then the question would arise whether this being is accidental to what the thing is – and whence would it then accrue to it?

Therefore it follows that, in that which is necessary-to-be,
being and what it is are the same;
and being must be to it the same as “what the thing is” is to other things.

From this it becomes clear that the necessary being is in no way like anything else besides itself,
because whatever is other than it is possible;
and in everything that is possible, its being is other than that which it itself is, and its being is from the necessary being, as we shall say later.

5. It is not mutually dependent with anything else

Fifth: the necessary being does not depend on something else in such a way that that other also depends on it – that is, so that each of them is the cause of the other.

For in all other things such a situation is impossible, as is proved thus:

If h is the cause of g, and conversely g is the cause of h,
then h, insofar as it is cause, is prior to g;
likewise g, insofar as it is cause, is prior to h.

Then it follows that g is prior to that which is prior to itself – which is absurd.
For in such a case each of them is prior to the other insofar as it is cause, and posterior insofar as it is caused – and this is clearly false.

6. It does not stand in mutual dependence or correlation

Sixth: the necessary being does not depend on another in such a way that that other depends on it –
not in the sense of causality, nor in the sense of a mere relation, as between two brothers.

For we say that if the removal of one does not follow upon the removal of the other, then this one does not depend on that other.

We, however, grant that something other than the necessary being does depend on it;
for every caused thing depends on its cause, whereas the cause does not depend on what is caused.

And whatever’s destruction follows from the destruction of another is possible, not necessary.
Whatever depends on another is possible, and that other either:

is sufficient for it to exist, so that that other alone is the cause and this is caused by it; or else

is not sufficient of itself, but needs another along with it, and so this thing will be caused by both.

But all this stands in complete opposition to that which is necessary-to-be.

7. There cannot be two necessary beings

Seventh: it is impossible that there be two beings of which each is necessary-to-be,
as though the necessary being had a peer,
each of them sufficient to itself, in need of nothing, and dependent on nothing.

For it is necessary that they be either entirely similar in every way, or different.

If they are entirely similar, then numerical distinction between them is destroyed, and a duality cannot be understood in them – just as we say that two blacknesses cannot exist in the same subject in the same way; and as it has been proved that a universal is not made singular except by a difference or by some accident that is wholly proper to it.

That they should be different by a difference or by an accident is likewise impossible, for the reason already stated: that difference and accident do not enter into the constitution of the more universal; and that “humanity” does not make “animal” to be animal, but makes it to be this [man].

This happens in those things whose being is an accident added over and above what the thing itself is – such as how much it is, and so on.

But in that whose being and what it is are one and the same,
difference neither constitutes what it is nor constitutes its being.

Therefore the necessary being must be without such difference;
so difference and accident would in it be superfluous.

For if the necessary being could not exist without such a difference, then that difference would enter into the certainty of its essence; but it has been said above that this is impossible, since difference enters only into what the thing is, and “what the thing is” is distinct from its being in everything other than the necessary being.

8. Nothing can be added to its essence

Eighth: nothing can be designated in the necessary being which is superadded to its essence.

For if we suppose its being to be together with some such designation, in such a way that its being would be destroyed if that designation were supposed not to be, then its being would depend on that designation and it would become composite out of parts, so that its essence would not entail being except through the conjunction of those parts.

But every composite out of several things is caused, as has been said.

If, however, its being does not cease, even if we suppose that designation not to exist, then that designation is accidental to it, as knowledge is to man – which is false, since every accident is caused, as has been said.

And if the cause of that accident were the necessary being itself, then it would at once be agent and recipient.
But for it to be agent is not the same as for it to be recipient; for it does not receive inasmuch as it acts, nor does it act inasmuch as it receives.
Then there would be in it some kind of multiplicity.

We have already shown that in the necessary being no multiplicity can exist, because multiplicity must be caused by unities.
Therefore it is one in every way.

(And we shall also prove in natural philosophy that a body does not move itself, and that it is impossible that one and the same thing move and be moved in the same way, or that the agent be recipient in the same way. For sometimes a body is recipient, and that which acts upon it is external – as when a body is pushed upward. Sometimes it is recipient according to its matter and agent through its form – as when it moves downward.)

Imagine, then, action and reception being together in a body and in other similar things, that is, in those that are composed of something that is as it were form, by which they act, and of something that is as it were matter, by which they receive.
We have, however, shown that the necessary being is not of this kind.

Nor can that accidental designation be from something other than it; for then the necessary being would depend on that other. For the being of the necessary being with that designation would depend on the being of that other; and the being of the necessary being without that designation would depend on the non-being of that other.

Therefore the necessary being, whether “marked” by that designation or not, would in either case be dependent.

But that whose being depends on the non-being of something else is caused.
For just as, for its being, it requires that that other not be,
so for its non-being it requires that that other exist, whose existence destroys its essence.
Thus its essence would depend on that other.

But the necessary being does not depend on anything other than itself in any way, since it is sufficient to itself in itself for its own being.
And this is what we understand by “necessary-to-be”.

9. It cannot be changed

Ninth: the necessary being cannot be changed.

For change is nothing other than the indication that something new comes to be in that which previously was not [there].
But everything new requires a cause; and it is impossible that such a cause be something other than that which is the necessary being (as said above), or be the necessary being itself.

For every designation that proceeds from essence is present together with the essence, and is simultaneous and inseparable from it – especially since it has been said that the agent is not recipient.
Therefore nothing acts upon itself in any way.

10. From the necessary being, immediately, only one thing proceeds

Tenth: from the necessary being there proceeds only one thing, with nothing in between.
But with certain intermediaries, many things proceed from it, and in an ordered way.

It has been shown that it is one, in which there is no multiplicity in any way.
Every multiplicity belonging to one thing is either:

from the parts that constitute its unity, as the multiplicity in a body, or

from those things into which the thing is understood to be divided – namely, when it is understood as divided into two, one of which does not exist without the other, as form and matter, or

from being and from what the thing is.

But all these we have already removed from it.
Therefore nothing remains in it but true unity in every respect.

From one, however, only one proceeds.
For the work of one is not made diverse unless either by the diversity of that in which it works, or by the diversity of the instrument, or by something else which is besides the essence of the one agent.

This is proved as follows.
When one body heats another body and cools another, it is necessarily known that there is a diversity between them.
For if one of them were such as the other is, the action on them would be alike.

And since it is impossible that two different effects should proceed from two similar essences, then it is even more impossible that different effects should proceed from one and the same essence.

For a thing is more distant from another than from itself.
Therefore, since the likeness of one thing to another entails that their actions should not be diverse, much more does identity entail this.

We speak of identity in reality, although our intention here is to make you understand the point.

Eleventh

The eleventh point is that the necessary being, just as it is not called an accident (as was said above), so neither is it called a substance, even though it exists through itself and does not exist in a subject, as substance does.

For as they have agreed, substance is nothing other than that which a thing is, whose being is not a being in a subject – that is, such that when it actually exists, it is not in a subject; not that it must actually have existence in act.

Let this be your example: the animal called the phoenix. This is without doubt a substance; yet you are uncertain whether it exists now or not – and likewise many other substances.

Substance, then, is called the determinate nature of a thing and that which it itself is, when it happens to have actual existence and not merely existence in species (in kind, as a notion).

Substance, therefore, is the account (interpretation) of a thing whose being is different from that which the thing itself is.

Accordingly, that whose being and that which it is are one and the same will not be called substance according to this agreement,
unless perhaps someone wishes to take substance to mean only “that whose being is not in a subject.” In that sense, the necessary being could be called a substance.

But if someone were to say:

“Since the necessary being is, and something other than it is, and thus being is common to them, therefore the necessary being is from another under one common genus; so it must differ from that other by a difference, and thus will have a definition,”

we answer that it does not have a definition, because being belongs to it and to other things according to “prior” and “posterior” (in an ordered way).

We have also already shown that being belongs to substance and to accidents alike, yet does not belong to them univocally; and whatever is not predicated univocally is not a genus.

But being is not a genus;
for although it is said “not to be in a subject,” it will not for that reason be a genus.

For in that expression only this is denied: “to be” and “not to be in a subject,” which belongs both to it and to substances; it is not said of it “according to generality.”

Substantiality, however, is a genus for all substances.

It follows, therefore, that the necessary being does not fall under any of the ten predicaments; for since it does not fall under the predicament of substance, then much less under the predicaments of accidents, especially since the being of all the predicaments is something besides what they are, and is accidental to them and outside what they are; whereas the being of the necessary being and that which it is are one.

It is clear, then, from this that the necessary being has no genus, and therefore no difference and no definition.

And it is clear that it does not subsist in anything, nor in a subject; therefore it has no contrary.

It follows that it has no species; therefore it has no peer nor sharer (participant).
And it has been shown that it has no cause; therefore it has no change, and it has no part in any way.

Twelfth

The twelfth point is that whatever is other than the necessary being must proceed from it in an order, and that whatever exists has its being from it.

This is proved as follows.

After it has been shown that the necessary being is only one,
then whatever is not that one is not necessary; therefore it is possible, and so it stands in need of that which is the necessary being; therefore it is from it.

Now all possible things are necessarily divided four ways:

Either some proceed from others,
and those others from still others, and so they are linked on to infinity;

or we arrive at one ultimate thing which is a cause and has no cause of itself;

or we arrive at one ultimate thing whose cause is one of its own effects;

or we arrive at the necessary being.

That this division into four members embraces all cases is clear from this reasoning:
it is necessary that either things arrive at some ultimate or do not arrive at an ultimate.

If they do arrive at an ultimate, then that ultimate is either the necessary being or something else.
If it is something else, then it either has a cause or does not have a cause.

The first of the four members – namely, that causes go on to infinity – has already been destroyed.

From the second member – that things arrive at an ultimate other than the necessary being, as we have now supposed, and that this ultimate has no cause – it would follow that there are two necessary beings, because by “necessary being” we understand nothing else than that which has no cause in any way; and this too has already been destroyed.

The third member – namely, that the cause of that ultimate is one of its own effects in reverse order (for example, that a is the cause of b, and b is the cause of c, and c is the cause of d, and conversely d is the cause of a) – is absurd.

For it follows from this that what is caused becomes a cause, since the cause of a caused thing is itself caused;
how then will it be a cause?

And the cause of a cause is a cause; how then will it become something caused?
We have already also stated the refutation of this.

It therefore remains true that the fourth member is the case:
namely, that things do arrive at an ultimate, which is the necessary being.

If, however, someone should say:

“You have already divided being into that which depends on another and that which does not depend on another, and you have called that which does not depend on another ‘owed-to-be’ or ‘necessary-to-be’; and you have affirmed that the necessary being must be something of this sort – namely, everything that you have said of it – because it is absolute in itself and not dependent on anything. Yet you have not assigned among the things that are any being of this sort. By what proof, then, will it be proved that there is a necessary being, i.e. a being of which the description is everything you have said about it?”

we answer that its proof is this:

The being of this sensible world is manifest – this world which is of bodies and accidents.
But in all these, their being is something other than what they themselves are.
And whatever is of this kind has been shown to be possible.

How, indeed, will they not be possible?

For the existence of accidents is only through bodies; therefore they are possible.
And the existence of bodies is from their parts, and from form and from matter (hyle).

The existence of form is on account of matter, and the existence of matter is through form – that is, one of these cannot be without the other.

And whatever is of this kind has already been shown not to be the necessary being, since it has already been proved that the necessary being is neither form, nor matter, nor body, nor accident.

Now a universal negative converts into one like itself;
it is therefore manifest that none of these is the necessary being.

Therefore, since in that case the necessary being would be possible, these things are possible.

We have already said that what is possible does not have being from itself but through something other than itself.
And this we understand of everything that is made (factum).

Therefore the world is possible, and thus it is made.

The sense of being-made is that a thing has its being from another and not from itself.
Thus, with respect to itself, it does not have being;
but with respect to another than itself, it does have being.

But whatever belongs to a thing from itself is prior, in essential priority, to whatever belongs to it from another.

Now non-being is from itself, but being is from another than itself.

Therefore its non-being is prior to its being;
hence it is made from eternity and everlasting, since it has being from another which is eternal.

We have already said that the eternity of a thing does not take away from it its being “made.”
And that one from whom a thing always is is more noble than one who, after resting for an infinite interval, prepares himself to act.

Since, therefore, it has been shown that the whole universe is possible,
and it has been said that all possible things need a cause,
and that causes necessarily lead back to the necessary being, which is necessarily one,

it follows that the first principle of the world is that which is necessary in itself, and which is one in every way, and whose being is from itself.

Nay rather, it is true and pure Being in itself, and it is the origin of the being of all that is other than itself.

Its being, therefore, is perfect and most perfect, such that all things whatsoever that are have their being from it according to their order.

And the comparison of the being of others to its being is like the comparison of the light of other bodies to the light of the sun.

For the sun shines by itself, not by another that illuminates it;
therefore it is the fountain of light for every luminous thing, because it sends light from itself into something other than itself, without anything being separated from itself; rather, the light of its essence is the cause of the coming of light into something other than itself.

This example, however, would be fully fitting if the sun were light through itself without a subject.
But in fact, light is in a body which is its subject.

The being of the First, which is the fountain of the being of the whole universe, is not in a subject.

It also differs in another way, namely that light comes forth from the sun only naturally, so that the sun has no knowledge which would be the cause of its emission.

For the sun’s knowing that light proceeds from itself is not the principle of light’s being from it.

We shall also show that, inasmuch as the universe is ordered, the knowledge of the First is the principle of its ordering, and that every ordering whatever follows upon an intellectual ordering, which is the exemplar in the essence of the First.

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THIRD TREATISE
ON THE ATTRIBUTIONS OF THE FIRST,
IN WHICH THERE IS A PREPOSITION AND (SOME) THESES

The preposition is, as has been said before, that in the necessary being there is in no way any plurality.

Yet it is altogether necessary to designate the necessary being by certain designations, and it is necessary to distinguish those designations which introduce plurality into it from those which do not introduce plurality, so that only those which do not produce any multiplicity are attributed to it.

Designations are divided into five kinds. For example, of a man one says: man, body, white, knowing, giving, needy – these are five designations.

The first, which is “body,” is essential and is an essential part of the thing, and a genus. A designation of this kind cannot be said of the necessary being, since it has been said that it has neither genus nor difference.

The second, which is “white,” is an accidental designation of man, and likewise a designation of this kind cannot be said of the necessary being.

The third, which is “knowing” (science), is an accidental designation of man, and depends upon something else, namely the thing known. Whiteness, however, is an accident of man, but not one that depends on something else, and in this it differs. But in the necessary being there is no accident at all, whether dependent or non-dependent, as was said above.

The fourth, which is “giving” (bountiful), is understood to be a relation of a thing to the action that proceeds from it. And this can be said of the First; many designations of this sort can be said of it in various ways, according to the actions that proceed from it. This, however, does not make there be any multiplicity in it; hence such designations do not make any multiplicity in it.

For a change of relation does not make it necessary that the subject itself be changed, as when you are at someone’s right hand you are designated relatively. If that person is moved so as to be at your right hand, then there will be change in him according to motion; but you yourself are not changed. And in this way we can admit that many relations of this sort are said of the necessary being.

The fifth, which is “neediness” (poverty), is in sense a negative designation, since need is understood as nothing other than the privation of possessions. Thus, as far as the word goes, it appears to be an affirmative designation. In truth, however, many such designations can be said of the First, because many things can be denied of it.

And from these two kinds of designation – those of negation and of relation – many names arise for the First which do not produce multiplicity in it.

For when it is called “one,” it is understood not to have a like, nor an equal, nor to be capable of receiving division.

When it is called “eternal,” it is understood that its beginning-to-be is denied.

When it is called “bountiful,” “lavish,” or “gracious,” it is understood relatively, with respect to the actions that proceed from it.

And when it is called “the principle of the universe,” this too is understood relatively. And this is the Preposition (the preliminary thesis).

First Thesis

The first of the theses is that the First Principle is living.

For whoever knows himself is living; but the First knows itself; therefore it is knowing and living.

The proof that it knows itself is this. First, however, it must be understood what is meant by these words we use – knowing, knowledge, and known – since in natural philosophy, namely in the book On the Soul, it will be said that our soul perceives itself, what is other than itself, and its own knowledge.

Accordingly, in so far as some thing is knowing, it is understood to be free from matter;
but in so far as it is known and understood, it is understood as stripped of matter.

Now, when we posit that that which is stripped comes to be in that which is immune from matter, then what comes to be is knowledge, and that in which it comes to be is the knower.

Knowledge, truly, is understood as nothing other than the imprinting (sealing) of a form abstracted from matter in a thing that is immune from matter.

Thus that which is imprinted in it is knowledge, and that in which the imprinting takes place is the knower; and nothing else is understood by “knowledge.” When this is present, the name of “knowledge” and of “knower” is true; otherwise it is not true.

Now what we mean by immune and by stripped is one and the same; but we ascribe stripped to the thing known, and immune to the knower, so that the signification of the words is not confused.

Further, a man does not know himself except because his soul is stripped (of matter); nor is he absent from himself to such an extent that he would need an image of himself or a form to be presented to him in order to know himself. For his soul is present to itself, nor is he absent from himself; therefore he knows himself.

We have already said that the necessary being is much more free from matter than the human soul; for the soul depends on matter, and its activity depends on it; but the essence of the First, as we shall say later, in no way depends on matter.

Therefore it is itself present and manifest to itself.

Hence it necessarily knows itself, since its stripped essence is not absent from its essence that is immune from matter; for this alone is what is meant by knowledge.

Second Thesis

The second thesis is that its knowing itself does not add anything to it, as though thereby there were a multiplicity in it, since its knowledge is nothing other than itself.

To make this clearer, we will first premise something:

whatever man knows is either known by him because it is presented to his soul through an external sense, or through an internal sense, or it is known by him on account of a likeness of something existing in him. For unless a man finds in himself a likeness of a thing, he cannot know it.

When this has been established, we say that man does not know that this is in God except by way of consideration of himself; for he knows himself. Thus, since he is himself, what is known by him is either he himself or something other.

If it is something other, then he has not known himself but something else.
But if what is known by him is himself, then in this respect the knower is the known; therefore knower and known are one.

We shall also prove that knowledge too is the known, in such a way that we take the thing known as a basis and prove that the knowledge is that very thing known, and that the knower is that very thing known, as has been said. From this it will necessarily follow that knower, known, and knowledge are one, and there is no multiplicity in them.

The proof that knowledge is the known and that sense is the sensed is this:

Man is knowing on account of that which is sealed (imprinted) in his faculties from the form of the thing in itself and its likeness. Thus he apprehends that impression which is imprinted in him, and he is sensing that impression alone.

But the external thing is equal and similar to that impression, and is the cause of the coming of that impression into him; and that external thing is, in relation to what is first apprehended, only secondarily known. For that which is in you is what has come to be in you from the impression.

Now sense is understood as nothing other than that sensible impression, and this is also the first thing sensed; therefore sense and the sensed are one.

Likewise, knowledge is the very thing known, and its likeness equal to it; and this is what is apprehended and known, namely the likeness that is imprinted in the soul; and this too is the first thing sensed. It is therefore true that what is known is the form itself.

But when it has been established that the thing known is the knower himself, then knowledge, knower, and known are united.

Therefore the First is knowing itself, and its knowledge and what it knows is itself; and these expressions differ only by a diversity of relations.

From the fact that it is immune from matter and has itself manifest and present to itself, it is knower.

From the fact that it has its essence stripped for its essence that is immune, it is thing known.

And from the fact that its essence is of its essence and in its essence and not absent from its essence, it is knowledge of its essence; it is knowledge through itself.

But all this is nothing other than knowledge, since it requires only the thing known.

And whether the thing known is other than the knower or is the knower himself, in either case the knowledge does not introduce any distinction in it. One may indeed concede that the thing known is either the knower himself or something other; but it is more fitting that it know itself than something else – that is, that it be more known to itself than anything else.

Third Thesis

The third thesis is that the First knows all the species and genera of all things that are. Hence nothing is lacking to its knowledge. And this thesis is more difficult and deeper than the preceding one; yet it is proved as follows.

It has been said that it knows itself. Hence it must know itself as it is, since it is naked, open, and most certainly manifest to itself just as it is.

But the certain truth concerning it is this: that it is pure and true being, the source of the being of substances and accidents, and of whatever they are according to their order.

If therefore it knows itself to be the principle of them, then the knowledge of them is contained in its knowledge of itself.

But if it does not know itself to be their principle, then it does not know itself as it is – which is absurd.

For it knows itself only because it is manifest to itself, and these two are bare – that is, it itself under two respects. It, as it is, is known to itself.

Indeed, each of us, when he knows himself, knows himself to be living and powerful, without doubt, because such he is. If he does not know himself so, then he does not know himself as he is.

Therefore the First knows itself to be the principle of all things.

Thus the knowledge of all things is contained under its knowledge of itself, as a contained thing, without doubt.

Fourth Thesis

The fourth thesis is that this too does not introduce a multiplicity into its knowledge or its essence.

But this is subtler and more difficult than the preceding one, since all things that are known, in so far as they are many, require many knowledges.

Hence knowledge of many distinct known things cannot be one. For the understanding of that which is truly one is this: that there is not in it one thing and another, in such a way that, if one posits the destruction of some element of it, it would follow that it does not exist, because it has no parts.

For if we suppose that it knows substances and accidents by one knowledge, then if we suppose that it does not know the accidents, there will still remain something else which we said it knows, namely substances. And the same holds for every pair of known things.

But this conflicts with what is understood by true unity.

This is made clear from considering the presence of the rational soul. For the soul is like a small tablet containing the sum of all the things that are in the world, in which the exemplar of every thing is found, and by which it becomes possible to know the universe.

Let us say, then, that a man, in his cognition of things, has three dispositions.

The first is that he distinguishes the forms of the things known in his deliberation, in the way that a man arranges, for example, the content of laws, when he disposes himself to recite each point in its own order, one after another; and this is a knowledge of the disposition of his ordering.

The second (disposition) is when someone becomes so skilled in the roots and principles of the laws, and so perfectly knows all their force, that he can immediately understand whatever is recited to him without recollecting them. And then, in that, because he does not need to recall one by one the things that are said, he is called a jurist; for at that moment he does not directly possess the science of arranging and recalling each individual point, since from those very things he has already acquired for himself a disposition and a habit which is for him the principle of an overflowing knowledge in legal matters and forms, which are infinite. The relation of this disposition to every possible form is one and the same. And this disposition is simple and most simple; and it is one, in which there is no diversity, although it has a relation to infinite forms.

The third disposition is a mean between each of the two dispositions. For example, when a man hears the words of someone arguing against him; he, however, knows what is being said, and knows that he has the answer ready at hand, and knows that what is being said is false and that he can completely refute it. As if he should hear it said that the world did not begin, because it appears similar to this or that body. He, however, knows both that it did begin and how one ought to reply to the objection that the other has made, even though, in recalling and gathering every single point, a great deal of time and arrangement or distinction would be required.

Yet he is most certain of himself that he fully knows the reply, although the ordering of the reply has not yet preceded in his intellect, and afterwards, as it were, he thinks out the reply by descending from the simple universal thing which he had known in himself, not ceasing within himself from this until, from that universal thing, distinct forms come into his intellect by which he may signify something, bringing them in one proposition after another, until that which he possessed immediately as a simple answer is perfectly made manifest through propositions and orderings whose ordering, at that time, was not at hand in his intellect, since he then had the simple disposition which is the principle and maker of their ordering. And this disposition is the more noble in matters of distinction.

Hence we must posit that the knowledge of the First, with respect to all the things that are, is of the manner of the third disposition. For it is impossible that it be of the manner of the first disposition, since ordering-knowledge is itself human knowledge, whose two cognitions are not joined in the soul in one instant, but one succeeds the other, because knowledge is, as it were, an engraving in the soul. For just as we cannot imagine two engravings or two figures in the same wax at the same time, in the same way, and with respect to the same thing, so we cannot imagine that two distinct knowledges are present in the soul at the same time in the same way; rather, they succeed one another so quickly that their succession cannot be grasped on account of the brevity of the time, because many known things, joined together at once, have become as one. And from them there results in the soul one disposition whose relation to all forms is one. And this is like a single picture. But this ordering and this change belongs only to man.

If, however, we were to suppose these to be distinct and ordered in the knowledge of God, there would surely be many infinite knowledges in God, and from this a plurality would follow in God, and this would be absurd. For when the soul is intent upon one particular thing, it is prevented from being intent upon another at the same time.

Therefore the sense of the statement that the First is knowing is only that it is in a simple disposition whose relation to all things known is one. Accordingly, what is understood by divine knowledge is nothing other than the principle from which distinction flows from it into other things that are outside it; therefore its knowledge is the principle that creates the distinctions of sciences in the essences of angels and of men. Thus it is knowing according to this consideration.

And this mode is more noble than the mode in which things are arranged one after another in the soul. For those things that succeed one another do not come all at once, but singly, for they must be finite; whereas the relation of this divine knowledge is one and the same both to what is finite and to what is infinite.

For example, suppose there is a king in whose power are the keys of the treasuries of the whole earth; he himself has no need of them, nor does he use them, nor spend them on his own needs, but distributes them to the peoples. Hence it is clear that whoever possesses any gold or silver has received it from him, and has obtained it by means of the king’s key. Likewise, with the First are the keys of all sciences; for from it proceed the knowledge and cognition of all things. And just as it is unfitting not to call “rich” the king in whose hands are the keys of the treasuries, so it is unfitting not to call “knowing” the one in whose hands are the keys of the sciences. And if the poor man who receives money from him is called rich inasmuch as he now has money in hand, and the king is called rich inasmuch as he gives, and from his hand others receive, why should not he from whom the riches of all flow forth be called rich?

So it is, then, in the case of knowledge; and thus the relation of the First’s disposition of knowledge to individual sciences is like the relation of alchemy to minted coins, for alchemy is more noble in that from it coins without limit come forth according to measure. This has been said by way of example.

It is therefore necessary that the knowledge of the First be understood as simple, in comparison with the third disposition. Thus the relation of the First’s knowledge to all things that are known is like the relation of the opponent in a disputation to the ordered replies to each single point.

But if someone should say that, from this very disposition, it seems to follow that it is without knowledge for it is apt to receive it by a proximate power, and therefore, on account of the nearness of that power, is called wise, whereas otherwise it would not be wise, and so the First would be without knowledge in act; moreover, the First cannot be understood to be in potency as capable of receiving knowledge; therefore it is not knowing either in potency or in act we reply that this objection pertains to the second disposition, not to the third.

The third disposition, however, differs from the second in this, that one who knows according to the second disposition can forget the knowledge and the thing known, either both together or either of them. But one who knows according to the third disposition knows how to falsify (refute) the claim of the one who says that the world did not begin, and how one ought to reply to his objection, and he has this as something certain and firm in his soul. He therefore has a disposition present in act, which has a relation to ordered sciences, although their ordering is not present to his intellect, even though he is able to gather it and make it present to himself.

Accordingly, it is in accordance with this disposition that the disposition of the First must be taken as an example, so that by it we may indicate its understanding. And this is what ought to have been sought in this thesis.

Fifth Thesis

The fifth thesis is that the most high God, just as he knows genera and species, likewise knows the possibles that come to pass, even though we do not know them. For a possible, so long as it is known to be possible, cannot be known whether it will occur or will not occur; for nothing is known about it except only this, that it is possible the meaning of which is that it is possible for it to be or not to be.

For example: if we know that it is necessary that Peter come tomorrow, then it becomes due or necessary, and it will be false to say that it is possible for him not to come. Therefore, so long as nothing is known about the possible except only this, that it is possible, it is indeed not known of it whether it will occur or will not occur.

Now we have already said that everything which is possible in itself is necessary by reason of its cause. Therefore, if its cause is known to exist, then its being will be necessary, not possible. But when its cause is known not to exist, then it is known that its not-being is necessary, not possible. Thus possibles, with respect to their causes, are necessary.

For when we have known all the causes of some thing and have known that they exist, we immediately judge that that thing absolutely ought to exist as, for instance, Peter’s finding a treasure tomorrow is something that may possibly occur or not occur. But if we know that there exist the causes for his coming upon the treasure, then at once doubt is removed; as, if we know that something is bound to happen in his house by which he is compelled to go out of the house, and that he will walk along such-and-such a road over some line beneath which we know a treasure to be hidden, covered with some light material that does not sustain the weight of Peter passing over, then it will be known that it is necessary for him to fall in there. For this has become necessary with respect to the position of the existence of those causes.

But the First, who is blessed, knows contingents by their causes, since causes and occasions are traced back all the way to the necessary being. Therefore, whatever is possible and whatever is contingent is necessary, for if its cause did not exist, it would not exist; but that its cause exist is necessary, once one has gone back to that which is the necessary being. Since, therefore, he is knowing of the orderings of causes and occasions, he is assuredly also knowing of the things caused themselves.

Hence an astrologer, who grasps some of the causes of the existence of something and not all, is not to be wondered at if he judges something to be by way of opinion; for it is possible that what he knows may chance to be hindered so that it does not come about, because in what he has said he has not included all the causes. And this can happen only because of the removal of those things that occur incidentally. But if he were to know the greater part of the causes, his opinion would be strengthened.

But if indeed he were to know all the causes, he would attain science (true knowledge); just as one knows in winter that the air will grow warm after six months, because the cause of the warming is that the sun will be in the middle of the sky when it is in Leo, and it is known by experience and by demonstration that the sun does not change its course, and that after this interval of time it will return to Leo. This, then, is the mode of knowledge concerning possibles.

Sixth Thesis

The sixth thesis is that the First, who is praiseworthy, cannot know singulars with a kind of knowledge in which he knows past and future and present in such a way, namely, that he should know that the sun today will not undergo an eclipse, but tomorrow; and when tomorrow has come, that he should know that it is now being eclipsed; and after tomorrow, that he should know that the sun yesterday underwent an eclipse.

For this diversity of knowing in this way would make it necessary that there be change in his essence; but it has been said above that it is impossible for there to be change in him.

And the way in which change would follow is this: the act of knowing accompanies the thing known, and when the thing known is changed, the knowing is also changed; but when the knowing is changed, the knower is likewise changed, because knowing is not among those properties which, when they are changed, do not change the knower – as is the case with sitting on the right or on the left. For knowing is a property in the essence, whose change makes it necessary that the essence be changed.

Such is the relation of knowledge to the thing known, that when the thing known is changed, the knowledge is likewise changed; as, if we suppose there to be a single knowledge of this, that there is to be an eclipse; then, when the eclipse is present, there will be a knowledge “because it now is”; and when the eclipse has been removed, there will be a knowledge “because it has now passed.” Thus, as it were, the knowledge would be one, and the object known would be what is changed. But knowledge is the exemplar (pattern) of the thing known, and exemplars of different things are different.

If, therefore, we were to suppose that the First knows that the eclipse will be, then in this respect he will be in one disposition; but when the eclipse has come to be, if the same disposition remains, he will be ignorant that the eclipse is. If, however, he is knowing that the eclipse is, then this disposition is different from that former one; there is, therefore, change.

The First, however, is not related to particulars except in a universal manner, and in such a way he is to be understood as he is from eternity without end, since he is not changed.

For example: if he knows that when the sun crosses the tail-node, after a fixed time it returns to it, and he knows that the moon has already come to that point, and that, placed under it, it takes away from us, as it were, a third part of the sun, so that it must appear that about a third part of the sun is eclipsed in some particular climate, then he knows this thus eternally; and this knowledge is true, whether the eclipse be there or not.

But if we say that he knows that the sun is not now being eclipsed, and say that tomorrow he knows that it is now being eclipsed, then the first knowing will be different from the second; but this does not befit him in whom there can be no change.

Therefore no particular thing is so small that it does not have a cause, and he knows it through its cause, but in a very universal way, and there is in him no designation of any time or hour. Hence it remains that he knows it, knowing it from eternity without end. Nothing, therefore, is so small that it escapes his knowledge; moreover, all his dispositions are always the same, and are neither changed nor altered, if the case be so put.

Seventh Thesis

The seventh thesis is that the First is willing, and that there is in him will and providential care, and that these are not something other than his essence – which is shown as follows.

The First is a maker, as was said above, since all things proceed from him; therefore all things are his product. Now a maker is either one who acts only from pure nature, or from will. One who acts from pure nature is acting but not knowing the action or what is produced. But every action that falls under knowledge falls also under will.

Now whatever is, flows from the essence of God, and he knows that it flows from himself; and this outflow from him is not displeasing to him so that he should abhor it, for he hates none of these things. He therefore is pleased at its flowing forth from him; and this disposition may be allowed to be called will.

But the principle from which all that is from him flows is his knowing the mode of ordering in everything. Therefore his knowledge is the cause of the being of the thing known; therefore his will is his knowledge.

And every voluntary action cannot but be either pure believing, or knowledge, or opinion, or imaginative fantasy. Knowledge is like the action of geometry, in so far as true science requires. Opinion is like the action of a sick man, in guarding himself against something that he thinks harmful to him. Fantasy is like the action of the soul when it desires a thing that is similar to that which it loves, although it knows that it is not that, and when it rejects that which is similar to what it hates.

But the action of the First cannot be an action of opinion or of imagination, for these are non-permanent accidents. Hence it must be that his action is an action of truly intelligible knowledge. It remains, then, to know how knowledge is the cause of a thing’s being, and how it can be known that all things have flowed forth from him through his knowledge.

The First can be understood only by the example of the consideration of the soul. For when it happens to us to imagine a beloved thing, there arises from the imagination a power of desire. If this be intense and perfect, and if there be joined to it our imagining that “this ought to be,” then from it there proceeds a power that runs into the muscles, and a movement of the sinews, from which there follows the movement of the instrumental members; and thus the desired action comes forth – as when we imagine the form of a line that we wish to draw, and we think that it ought to be so, and then from the desire there arises the power of making it.

Thus, by the power of desire, the hand and the pen are set in motion, and so there comes forth the form of the line such as we had imagined it. And the meaning of what we have said, that “it ought to be,” is this: namely, that we know or think it to be useful, or pleasant, or good for us.

Therefore the movement of the hand comes from the power of desire; and the movement of the power of desire comes from imagination and from the knowledge that it ought to be. Thus we have already found in ourselves that knowledge in us is a principle from which something comes forth.

And this is manifest also in this, namely, that one who walks on a plank stretched between two very high walls thinks that he will fall – and he does fall; that is, the fall comes from his own thinking. But when the plank is laid out on the ground, he walks upon it and does not fall, because he does not think that he will fall, nor does he believe it. The imagination of falling, therefore, and the grasping of its form at that very moment, is the cause of the imagined thing – namely, the fall. Thus we have already found an example of this in the consideration of the soul.

Let us then return to the First, who is blessed forever, saying that the action of the First either proceeds from him as motion proceeds from the power of desire – and this is false. For desire and pleasure do not befit him, since they are appetites for a thing not yet possessed, which it is better to have than not to have. But in the Necessary Being there is nothing in potency that might be sought to be had, as has been proved from what precedes.

It remains, therefore, only to say that his knowing the order of the universe is the cause of the order of the universe flowing from him. Now the fact that we imagine the form of a line and of a drawing is not sufficient for the form of the line to exist, because, as far as we are concerned, things are divided into what is fitting and what is not fitting. Hence we need that a voluntary power, together with certain instruments, should produce in us the recognition of what is fitting and not fitting in their comparison.

And when this voluntary power has been stirred up, it will need members and instruments which it may move in order to bring to completion what we have imagined – and this because of our imperfection. The knowledge of the First itself, however, is sufficient to bring forth that which has been foreknown.

He also differs from us in another way, namely, that it is necessary for us either to know, or to think, or to imagine that the action itself is good for us; but this, in regard to the First, is absurd. For then acting would have to be from intention, that is, from a final cause. But we have already said that intention moves only that which is imperfect.

Therefore our will exists only in so far as we consider ourselves as choosing something that is useful to us. His will, however, is of the order of the universe, in so far as his knowledge considers that a thing is good in itself, and that in itself it is better for it to be than not to be, and that being is manifold, and that whatever is more full and more perfect is one, and that of all things that which is more one is still less simple in comparison with him. But that which is more perfect is better than that which is more imperfect.

Now the essence of the First is such that from it there flows, without doubt, everything that is according to the fullest mode and perfection, in accordance with the order that is possible in being, from the beginning to the end of that order.

And the meaning of this, that he is the provider (caretaker) of the creature, is this: that he knows that man needs an instrument for acting easily; for if such an instrument did not exist, he would be imperfect, and thus his not-being would be an evil for man. And he also knows that this fitting instrument ought to be something like a hand, or palm, or foot, and that the extremities should be distinguished by fingers, because without this, ease of acting would be hindered; and that the fingers must be able to assume many positions, so that five may be in one line, as four are in one line, while the thumb is separated from them so that it can grasp them all; and that they can be set in two ranks and in various ways.

And he knows that, because the diversity of the motions of the hand requires that it sometimes give, sometimes strike, and sometimes repel, this cannot be, except in accordance with this form which is now seen in it.

Therefore his knowledge of these things is the cause of their being.
Yet the relation of his knowledge to many other possible positions of the hand that might have been is one and the same; but this position is especially assigned to it and is distinguished from the other positions because in this one there is a greater perfection.

And since the essence of the First is such that it is more fitting for good to flow from it than evil – and by good and evil I do not mean in relation to him himself, but what they are in themselves and in their relation to the creature – it follows that everything that exists, namely the number of the stars and their measure, and the disposition of the earth and the animals, and whatever is, has its being in the manner in which it is only because, among all the possible modes of being, this one was the more fitting for it.

And whatever else is possible besides these is imperfect in comparison with the mode in which things now are. For if he were to create for animals instrumental members, and did not also indicate to them the way of using them, they would indeed be superfluous. For they create a beak for the chick, by striking with which it breaks out of the egg. If therefore it were not made to notice/attend to the use of the beak, and the gathering of food from the earth by it, the beak would be superfluous to it.

So care is complete when goodness is complete; and goodness is complete when, after the creation, there is also the knowledge/recognition of the use of the instruments. This, then, is the meaning of will and providence; but these are resolved into knowledge, and add nothing over and above knowledge, nor does knowledge add anything over and above his essence, as was shown before.

That his work should be done with intention in our sense, or without knowledge – this is not so. And if someone should say, “What great difficulty is there if he has intention together with knowledge, as we have, and his intention is that good should flow into other things than himself, not for his own sake – as we intend to draw out a drowning man from the water, not intending our own good, but because we wish some good to proceed from us?” – he is to be answered that, by the very necessity of having a plan (proponere), it must be that to have a plan is more fitting for the planner than not to have a plan; and this is exactly what makes us perceive intent.

But intention signifies imperfection. For we cannot set any plan before ourselves except out of some intention, that is, either for the gaining of a reward, or praise, or a good habit of doing good. For if, for us, it were utterly the same to do this as not to do it, then it would be unfitting for us to form a plan to do it and to set ourselves to carry it out. We understand nothing else by “to propose something” (proponere) except “to incline toward that which we think to be more fitting for us.” But if this is not what is understood by proposing, then “to propose” would be a mere random word without intelligible meaning.

Eighth Thesis

The eighth thesis is that the First is powerful. This is proved as follows.

By “powerful” we understand this: that he does what he wills, and does not do what he does not will – and such is he. We have already shown that his will is his knowledge. And because whatever he has known to be good to exist, does exist, and whatever he has known it to be better that it should not exist, does not exist.

If someone says, “How can this be true, since according to the philosophers he cannot destroy the heavens and the earth?”, it is to be said that if he willed, he would destroy them. But he does not will to destroy them, because his eternal will is that there be perpetual being; for perpetual being is better than not-being or being destroyed.

He is powerful precisely because, if he were to will, he would do it – not because he will in fact always do everything that is possible. Thus we say of a man that he is powerful to kill himself, although we know that he will not do this. Likewise it is truly said that God is powerful to make the Resurrection be now, although we know that he will not make it be now.

In general, what is contrary to what is (actually) known – that is, what is not known as actual – lies under the scope of power. Therefore he is powerful over all that is possible, in this sense: that if he willed, he would do it.

Now this statement, “if he willed, he would do it,” is a hypothetical conditional. It is not of the nature of a hypothetical conditional that both its parts be true; both can be false, or only one true. The conditional itself can be true, as in the proposition, “If a man were to fly, he would move in the air” – which is true, although both parts are false. Or again, “If a man were to fly, he would be an animal” – this is true, but its antecedent is false, its consequent true.

If someone says that this statement, “if he willed, he would do it,” seems to imply that some new will about a thing will come to him, and that this would mean change, then it is to be said that its true meaning is this: he is called powerful in this manner, namely, that whatever he wills to be, is; and whatever he does not will to be, is not. And that which he wills to be – if it were granted that he did not will it to be – then it would not be; and that which he does not will to be – if it were granted that he willed it to be – then it would be.

This, therefore, is the sense of his power and his will; and these two are reduced to his knowledge. But his knowledge was already reduced to his essence; therefore none of these things introduces any multiplicity in him.

Ninth Thesis

The ninth thesis is that the First is wise.

Wisdom is understood in two ways. One way is according to comprehension: wisdom is the true comprehension of a thing, with certainty about what it is (its quiddity), and its definition, and a belief about the true thing that is pure and most certain.

The other way is according to operation: that an operation be ordered in a wise manner, containing within itself everything that is necessary for its perfection and its beauty (or fitting adornment).

Now the First knows things as they are with a knowledge more noble than all kinds of knowledge. Our knowledge likewise is of two kinds:

one is that which is acquired from the being of the thing known, as is our knowledge of the forms of the heavens and the stars and the animals and the plants;

the other is that by which the being of the thing known is acquired, as when, by the knowledge of the sculptor, there comes to be the form of a sculpture which he has devised from himself, without a preceding example, and has carved it; and the sculpture, for that reason, has its being through him. In this case, his knowledge is the cause of the being of the thing known.

But when someone else looks at the sculpture and learns from it to make a similar one, then the thing known, with respect to that other person, is the cause of the being of the knowledge in him. Knowledge from which being proceeds is nobler than that knowledge which proceeds from being.

The knowledge of the First concerning the ordering of being is the principle of the order of all things that exist, as has been said; therefore it is nobler than all knowledge. And his works, from the first to the last, are altogether wrought wisely, because to each of them has been given its creation and then its governance/oversight; and he has been most generous toward each thing in giving it whatever is necessary to it, together with all that it needs, even if not strictly necessary, and everything that is of perfection and adornment, even though it does not greatly need it.

Such are, for example, the arch of the eyebrows, and the hollow of the feet, and the beard which covers the wrinkling of the face in old age, and many other subtle things in animals and plants and in all parts of the world, which cannot be fully grasped.

Tenth Thesis

The tenth thesis is that the First is most generous, the one from whom every good flows.

Good flows from someone in many ways: either so that, because of that, some recompense of some advantage may be made to him, or so that no recompense may be made, but that the thing must be done by him without any repayment being made to him.

Recompense is again of two kinds: either so that, for what is given, something similar is returned – as when money is given for money – or so that something not similar is returned – as when money is given in hope of eternal life, or praise, or of acquiring a good habit of doing good and thereby attaining perfection. This, however, is commerce, and exchange, and trade, not generosity, just as the first case is commerce, though people commonly call it generosity.

For generosity is the conferring of a fitting benefit without expectation of recompense. For when someone gives a sword to one who has no need of it, he is not called generous.

But the First is generous, because he has already poured out his abundance upon all that exists, as was fitting, and according to what was needed, without withholding anything that was possible to him either for necessity or for adornment; and this without hope of recompense or any advantage. For his essence is such that, from it, there flows upon all that is whatever is fitting to it. He, therefore, is truly generous. The name of generosity we allow also to be said of others, by extension.

Eleventh Thesis

The eleventh thesis is that the First delights in himself, and that there is in him – in a way analogous to what we call in ourselves – joy, sweetness, gladness, rejoicing, on account of the beauty of his essence and its perfection, which are ineffable; and because the angels who are nearest to him (whose existence we shall yet prove) have an ineffable delight in contemplating the beauty of the divine presence, which is added to the delight they have from their own beauty.

But this can be known from principles already laid down.

The first principle is that we must understand what is meant by delight and pain. If these words were to add something over and above mere perception, this could not be understood in him; but if they are reducible to the perception of some property, and it is established that his perception is of this kind, then the eleventh thesis is firmly true, without doubt.

If, however, delight is a designation of some property of perception itself, and this is fixed, then note that delight and pain are necessarily annexed to perception; where there is no perception, there is neither delight nor pain.

Now perception in us is of two kinds. One is sensible – manifest – which depends on the pleasure of the five senses. The other is hidden – intelligible and estimative.

Each of these perceptions, if we consider its comparison to the perceiving power from which it depends, is divided in three ways:

One kind is the perception of a thing convenient (fitting) to the perceiving power, according to its nature.

The second is the perception of harm.

The third is the perception of something neutral, that is, which is neither fitting nor harmful.

Delight, therefore, is the designation (or expression) of the perception of a thing that is fitting only; pain is the designation of the perception of a harmful thing. The perception of what is neither fitting nor harmful is called neither delight nor pain.

Nor should it be thought that pain is the designation of something that happens after the perception of harm, but rather that it is that very thing; for we cannot conceive the concurrence of harm with the perceiving power in such a way that it perceives it, without at once making true the name “pain” and making clear what is meant by it – even if everything else be supposed removed.

And likewise for delight.

Therefore perception is the common name which is divided into delight, and pain, and the neutral; and each of these is nothing other than perception itself, and not something different from it.

The second principle is that we must know this:
what is fitting to every power (virtus) is that action of it which is natural to it and unhindered.

For every power is so constituted that some action proceeds from it which is purely natural to it. Thus the nature of the irascible power is victory and the seeking of vengeance; and its delight is the attainment of victory. The nature of the concupiscible is, as it were, tasting; and the nature of estimation and imagination is hope, and in that they take delight – and so for each power respectively.

The third principle is that in one who is perfectly intelligent the hidden powers are strengthened more than the manifest ones – that is, the intelligible more than the sensible – and the delights of the sensible powers become more low and cheap in comparison with the delights of the intelligible and estimative powers.

Hence, when a man is told to choose between rich sweetness of food and between victory over his enemies and the attaining of a kingdom and the heights of worldly greatness, then, if he is of a low and abject mind and the hidden powers are extinguished in him, he will choose the oily sweetness rather than the other. But if that chooser is high-souled and of mature judgment, he will hold cheap the delight of food in comparison with the delight of acquiring a kingdom and victory over his enemies.

And by a low and base mind, and by one who is failing in himself, we understand this: that the hidden powers are dead, or their perfection is not yet complete, just as the powers of a child are hidden and have not yet gone forth from potency into act.

The fourth principle is that every power has a delight in apprehending that which is owed to it, when it is fitting to it.

But delights are varied according to

the intensity of the apprehensions,

and of the apprehending powers,

and of the apprehended intentions.

These three are, therefore, examples of the varieties of delights.

The first is according to the intensity of the apprehending power:
for the stronger a power is in itself and the nobler in its kind, the more perfect its delight will be. Thus the delight of food is according to the intensity of the pleasure in the food, and the delight of intercourse likewise; whereas the delight of intelligible things, in its own genus, is nobler than sensible delight – and for that reason the former surpasses the latter, so that a wise man chooses intelligible delights above foods and sensibles.

The second is according to the intensity (variety) of apprehension:
for the stronger the apprehension, the fuller the delight. Hence the delight of looking at a beautiful face from near at hand in a bright place is fuller than the delight of looking at it from afar; for the nearer apprehension is stronger.

The third is according to the intensity (variety) of the thing apprehended:
for this is varied according to fittingness and unfittingness. The more perfect that which is apprehended is in its beauty, the more vehement will be the delight – or the distress – just as delight is varied according to the variety of faces in beauty and in ugliness. Thus the delight in the more beautiful is greater, and the distress at the more ugly is greater.

The fifth principle, which is the conclusion of the preceding principles, is this: that the intelligible delight which is in us ought to be stronger than sensible delights.

For if we consider strength in itself, we shall find that intelligible strength is stronger and nobler than sensible strength. We shall show, when we speak of the soul, that the sensible powers exist only in bodily instruments, and they are weakened by the apprehension of their proper objects when those are too strong – as the eye delights in light and is pained in darkness, yet by too strong a light it is weakened; likewise, a louder sound weakens the hearing and, because of it, the hearing is hindered from apprehending a softer sound that comes after.

But intelligible things, the more manifest and stronger they are, the more they strengthen the intellect and make it clearer. And why should this not be, since the intelligible power is stable in itself, not receiving change or corruption, whereas the sensible power is in a corruptible body?

And of all things that are of earth, nothing is nearer or more comparable to the First than the intelligible power, as will be shown.

The apprehension of the intellect differs from the apprehension of sense in many ways. For the intellect apprehends a thing as it is in itself, without the admixture of anything other than itself; but sense does not apprehend color unless it at the same time apprehends length and breadth, nearness and farness, and other things which are outside the essence of color.

For the intellect apprehends things naked as they are in themselves, and abstracts and separates them from other things which are joined to them and yet alien from them.

Again, sense-apprehension is variable: sometimes it sees a small thing as great and a great thing as small; whereas the apprehension of the intellect is equal to the thing apprehended, so that it is neither more nor less: it either apprehends the thing as it is, or it does not apprehend it.

Again, as to what is apprehended: the things apprehended by the senses are bodily things and accidents, which are low and variable; but what is apprehended by the intellect is a universal quidditative form (quidditas universalis), eternal, which it is impossible to change. Moreover, among the things it apprehends is the essence of the First Truth, from whom all beauty and comeliness flow into the world.

Therefore sensible delight cannot be compared to intelligible delight.

The sixth principle is that the apprehensible thing which is wont to bring delight is sometimes present, and yet a man does not perceive its delight – either because he does not remember, or because he is intent on other things, as when one who is intent on something does not hear delightful sounds; or because he is hindered through an alteration of his nature.

Thus someone may take delight in eating earth or something sharp, because he has long been accustomed so; for long use sometimes brings about a kind of agreement between his nature and that which he has been accustomed to, and then he delights in a horrible thing when it is compared with his due nature.

And just as one suffering from the disease called bolismus, whose whole body needs food and whose stomach is actually the impediment so that he does not feel a desire for food, and this makes him loathe food – this does not mean that food is not delightful in itself, according to a healthy nature.

Sometimes, moreover, the apprehension of something delightful is lacking because of the weakness of the apprehending power – as weak sight is hindered by any brightness, although it is fitting and delightful for a healthy nature.

Therefore, by this the objection can be driven back of the man who says that, if intelligible things were more delightful, then we would delight in the sciences we do not possess and delight at those not yet possessed; but in fact we more often delight in the sensible things we have and grieve over those we do not have.

So it will be said that the cause of this is the estrangement of the soul from that which is fitting to its nature, by reason of its slight practice in such things, and because of the impediments that occur, and because of the frequency of sensibles and of the soul’s habit of dealing with all the things that bring pleasures.

For this is the same to the soul and to the heart as the disease of paralysis is to some member of the body. Thus it happens that a paralytic limb is sometimes burned and does not feel it; but when the paralysis is removed, it feels.

Likewise one who is asleep embraces his beloved; and likewise a foolish sick man, who afterward, when he is made healthy, feels (what he did not feel before). In the same way, the accidents of the body have brought it about that there is a sort of paralysis of this kind in the soul; yet when separated from the body through death, it perceives that sorrow has befallen it because of ignorance, if it has been ignorant, and because of evil habits. And it perceives that it delighted in wisdom, if it has been wise and of subtle nature.

Let us return, then, to that which we intend, and say that the First comprehends himself according as he is in himself in beauty and comeliness – he who is the principle of all beauty and of the flowing forth of all order and grace.

If we look at the knower, he is most subtle; if we look at the act of comprehension, it is more abundant and more perfect than any that can be; and if we look at the thing comprehended, it likewise is such. Thus he is the more subtle knower, the more excellent known, and the more perfect comprehension – for this is of inestimable greatness and depth.

Let us, however, imagine some man who rejoices in himself because he perceives his own perfection – that he surpasses all others in knowing all things and in ruling the whole world, with bodily health and beauty of form and the devotion of all to obey him added to this.

If all these things could be combined in some one man, this would assuredly be the greatest possible delight. Yet all these things are acquired from outside, and it can happen that they are taken away. And even so, they are nothing but the knowledge of one certain thing among those that can be known, and lordship over some portion of the earth, which has almost no proportion at all to all the bodies of the universe – and far less to the most excellent intelligible substances.

The comparison, then, of the delight of the First to our delight is according to the comparison of His perfection to our perfection, even when that aforesaid disposition has been posited in us, namely that we should be wise kings and the rest mentioned above.

Now Aristotle has said that the First, even if He had no delight in this, that He Himself comprehends His own beauty, save only this delight, that we delight in apprehending Him when we contemplate His beauty and, withdrawn from meditation on the things that are beneath Him, perceive His greatness and majesty, and that whatever is proceeds from Him according to the order that can be more beautiful, and that all things of necessity obey Him, and that thus it has been from eternity and shall be without end, and that this cannot be changed – surely this delight would be of such a kind that no other could be compared with it. How much more, then, when His own comprehension of Himself has no comparison at all with our apprehension of Him.

For we do not apprehend of Him and of His properties anything except universals, and these very few. The angels also know themselves, but through the First, and they are always in the contemplation of that beauty, as we shall prove later; their delight, therefore, is also without end, but yet it is beneath the delight of the First. Moreover, the delight which they have from the contemplation of the First surpasses the delight which they have from the apprehension of themselves. For their delight in the contemplation (or apprehension) of themselves is only from this, that they see themselves to be His servants and to be fulfilling His commandments.

The example of this is as follows: someone burns with love for a certain king, and then, when he is received by the king into his service, his glory and the exaltation of his heart in beholding the glory of the king and in being present to him, as one accepted as his servant, is greater than his gladness over his own body and his strength and his father and his lineage.

And just as our joy is more perfect than the joy of brute animals – whom we surpass in perfection and in the power of intelligence and in the inequality (or hierarchy) of creation – so much greater is the joy of the angels than our joy, although they have no desire for food and sexual intercourse, because of their nearness to the Lord God of ages and because of their security that they shall never lose what they have.

Man, however, is so disposed that he can acquire for himself eternal happiness, if the intelligible power should go forth from potency into act, so that in his soul there is depicted the being of all things that are, according to their order, and he apprehends the First Himself, and the angels, and all other things whatsoever there are. And sometimes he will feel some small measure of delight from the contemplation of them in this life, because he is joined to the body.

But when he has been separated from the body by death, and that which hinders has been removed, his delight will be brought to completion, and the veil which is hidden will be uncovered or taken away, and happiness will remain forever; and he will attain a most exalted vastness, and will be a companion of the angels in his nearness to the First Truth by affection, not by place. And this alone is what is understood by “happiness.”

CHAPTER ON PERFECTLY ASSIGNING THE PROPERTIES OF THE FIRST

It is clear from what has been said that you cannot know what is hidden except through what is manifest. The sense of this is that whatever you ask concerning what sort the First is, it cannot be shown to you except by an example taken from something that is manifest to the senses, or hidden in the soul yet plain to the intellect.

For when someone asks you how the First is knowing Himself, you will answer adequately if you say: “As you know yourself”; and in this way he will understand the reply. But if he says: “How does the First understand things that are outside Himself?”, you will say: “As you understand what is outside yourself,” and thus he will grasp it.

Again, when he asks how the First knows all things that are known by one and the same simple knowledge, you will say: “As you know how to answer a question immediately, without a prior ordering of your thoughts, and only afterwards set them in order.” And when he says: “How is it that His knowing a thing is the principle of that thing’s being?”, you will say: “As your estimation of your falling from a beam, when you walk along it, is the principle of your falling.”

And when he says: “How does He know all things that are possible?”, you will say that He knows them by knowing their causes, just as you know, in winter, that the air will be warm in summer because you truly know the causes of warmth.

And when he says: “In what way is there in Him exultation over His own perfection and beauty?”, you will say: “As there is in you when you have a perfection by which you excel other men and you notice it.”

In all these things we intend only this: to make you know that nothing about Him can be understood except according to something that is in you.

Yet it is true that you apprehend many things about yourself that vary according to perfection and imperfection, great and small; and together with this you also know that whatever you have understood to be truly said of the First is more noble and more sublime than what you have understood to be truly said of yourself. This, then, is altogether a belief concerning an absent reality, since of that “more” which you have supposed of Him you do not know the certitude; for a “more” of this sort is not to be found in you.

If, therefore, in the First there is something to which there is nothing similar in you, that you can in no way understand – and this is His essence, for He is a being without that which answers to the question “What is it?” (quid est). He is, in fact, the fount of all being.

But when you say: “How can there be a being without that which answers to the question ‘What is it?’”, assuredly, to understand this, no example can be given you, because nothing of the sort can exist in you. Therefore you will not be able to understand the truth of a being without that which answers to the “what it is.”

The certitude, however, concerning the essence of the First and True, and of His property, is only this: that He is found to be being without that which answers to the “what it is,” as though something further were added beyond being; and that what is answered to the question “whether it is” (an est) and to “what it is” (quid est) in Him is one and the same – and for this there is no example to be found in anything other than Himself.

For all other things besides Him are either substances or accidents. He, however, is neither substance nor accident. This too is not comprehended by the angels, for they are substances whose being is other than that which is answered concerning them to the question “what they are.” Being without that which answers to the “what it is” belongs to God alone; hence none knows God but God.

So if you say that our knowing that “He is being without that which is added and answers to the ‘what it is’,” and that “He is true and pure being” – what sort of knowing is that, if it is not knowing Him? To this we say that such knowing is the knowing of being itself, which is something common.

But when it is said that “He is a being without that which answers to the ‘what it is’,” this is said on this account: that He is not of the sort that you are. Now to know a thing by the removal of a suchness (talitas), and not by a certitude free from suchness, is like your knowing about Peter that he is not a master and not a carpenter – which is not to know his mastery, but only to know that something is removed from him.

But your knowing that he has will and power and wisdom is reduced to knowing him and things other than him. And your knowing that he knows himself is, as it were, a knowledge that is one of the concomitants of his essence. Yet the certitude of His essence is that He is pure being without that which answers to the “what it is.”

Hence, if you say: “How, then, shall I come to the knowledge of God?”, it will be said that you come to know by a demonstration that it is impossible for Him to be known, and that nothing apart from Himself can know Him.

What is understood as being able to be known of Him are His works and His properties, and that He is absolutely, and that there is nothing like Him.

But to understand “being without whatness” (esse sine quidtate) in that which has no [additional determination] is impossible; being, however, without an added whatness belongs to Him alone.

Therefore nothing else apart from Himself knows Him, just as someone has said that “to fail in comprehending comprehension is to comprehend.” But it is true that all men are weak for comprehending Him. Whoever, however, knows by necessary proof his own impossibility of apprehending Him, that one is a knower and an apprehender, because he apprehends this – that He cannot be apprehended by anyone. But whoever cannot apprehend Him and does not know, by the aforesaid proof, that it is necessarily impossible to apprehend Him, is ignorant of God; and such are men, except for the worthy, and the prophets, and the wise, who are deep in wisdom.

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TREATISE FOUR

After we have finished setting out the properties of the First, it is necessary that we speak of His works, that is, of the kinds of all things that are. For whatever is other than He is His work. And thus, when we have come to know the kinds of all things that are, we shall afterwards show in the fifth treatise how all things have proceeded from Him, and how there is a series in the ordering of causes and of things caused, although they are many, and how in the end all are reduced to one cause, which is the cause of causes.

Now this whole treatise is contained in one proposition and three roots.
The first is a discourse concerning the bodies that are within the circuit of the circle of the moon, and how they signify the existence of the heavens and their motion.
The second is a discourse concerning the heavens and the cause of their motion.
The third is a discourse concerning the souls which they call spiritual and celestial angels, and concerning the cause of their motion, and concerning the intelligences which they call the near angels and the cherubim.

The proposition likewise has parts.

The first concerns substances, according to the consideration of impression. And impression, insofar as it is possible in the intellect, is divided into three:

Into an impressor, who impresses and into whom nothing is impressed. This they are accustomed to call the stripped intelligences, which are substances neither divisible nor composite.

Into that into which something is impressed and which itself impresses nothing; and these are bounded, divisible bodies.

Into that which both impresses and has something impressed into it; for an impression is made in it by the intelligences, and it itself makes an impression in bodies. These are called souls, which are not bounded and are not bodies.

Of all these substances, the noblest are the intelligences, which are not changed and have no need to acquire impression or perfection from anything other than themselves, since their perfection is always with them, and there is nothing in them in potency. The vilest among these are the corruptible and changeable bodies. Between these are the souls, which are midway between intelligences and bodies; for souls receive impression from the intelligences and give impression to bodies.

These are the divisions which the intellect judges to be possible; that they are in fact so requires proof. It is, however, true that bodies have being, as can be perceived by sense. That souls exist is signified by the motions of bodies; and that intelligences exist is signified by souls, as will be shown in what follows.

The second [part] is that whatever exists, under the consideration of perfection and imperfection, is divided as follows:

That which is of such a sort that it does not need to have anything given to it from without, through which some property might be acquired for it, so that whatever was possible for it is present in it – this is called perfect.

And that for which whatever was possible is not present, but it needs to acquire what it does not have – this is called imperfect, until perfection has been acquired for it.

Then the imperfect is further divided:

Into that which does not need from anything other than itself to acquire what is to be acquired for it, and this is called sufficient;

And into that which does need this, and this is called imperfect absolutely.

But that which is perfect, which already has all that it ought to have, and is of such a sort that some good can proceed from it to another, is called more perfect, because it is perfect in itself, and as it were, from its superabundance, good flows forth to other things.

The third [part] concerns bodies properly. It has been said above that, among things that are, bodies are the vilest. These are divided into simple and composite according as it is possible so to understand them, although it is likewise so with respect to their inherence.

By simple we understand that which has one nature, as air and water.
By composite we mean that in which there are two natures, as clay, which is composed of water and earth. From composition there proceeds some usefulness that is not found in the simples: for example, the usefulness of ink, which is not in galls or vitriol taken separately.

The simple, however, is the principle of the composite, and is prior to it in being, without doubt, in order and in time. The simple, moreover, according to the intellect, is also divided into:

That which is apt for a composition to be made from it – by this we mean that from whose composition there arises a utility which is not in the simples from which it is made;

And that which is not apt, by which we understand that which has a perfect being in its own simplicity, and from whose composition no other thing can be understood to proceed, even if such a composition were possible.

Now that these propositions are clear, let us return to the first root, which is the discourse concerning what the lower bodies signify.

That bodies exist within the compass of the heaven is known by the senses, and that they are receptive of composition, as clay which is composed of water and earth. We say, therefore, that this sensible composition signifies that there is straight motion. And motion, according to the span of its course, signifies that there are two parts which are terminated and naturally diverse. But the diversity of the two parts signifies that there is a body surrounding them, which is the heaven.

Moreover, motion, insofar as it has begun to be, signifies that it has a cause, and that its cause has a cause, and so on to infinity. But this would not have been possible save by reason of the circular motion of the heaven.

Motion again, insofar as it is in a body, signifies that there is in that body a natural inclination and a nature which moves, and also the time in which the motion exists. Let us therefore set forth the modes of these significations and what follows from them.

The first thing, then, that accompanies composition is straight motion, which is to be understood thus:

Water has its own “where” (its proper place), and earth has its own “where”; each of these is natural to it, because every body needs a natural place, as will be shown in the works on nature. Composition, however, does not come to be except from the motion of the one to the place of the other. For if each of them were fixed in its own place, they would indeed remain near one another, but not composed – which is manifest. And the intellect, even before it finds them actually so, judges that if in things that are there is a composition from two simples, that composition cannot be except through motion.

Now, when motion is, it cannot be except from one part to another; therefore it requires two parts, and this too is manifest. And these parts must be terminated and naturally diverse. Their diversity is one of nature and of kind.

From this it follows that motion is either natural or violent, as we shall show later. Natural is, for example, the motion of a stone downwards; and this makes it necessary that the place from which it flees be different from that which it seeks. For if both places were indifferent to it, it would be unfitting for it to leave the one and approach the other. And for this reason a stone is not moved along the surface of the earth, because the level ground of the earth is indifferent with respect to it.

It is therefore necessary that the part from which it departs be different from the part to which it goes.

But if the motion is violent, as the motion of a stone upward – it is called violent when it is against nature – then there must be in the stone a natural inclination toward one part rather than another, in order that violence may be intelligible in it; for every violence is only against what is natural. It is manifest, therefore, that a natural inclination toward one part rather than another necessarily makes there be a diversity between the two parts.

And when they are said to be terminated, this is to be understood thus: that with respect to the lower part, for instance, the stone must return to it, and when it has returned, it is retained there; and where it is retained, there is its term and end. And similarly with respect to the upper part. And this whole matter is proved in these ways.

The first [argument] is that a part exists only in length, without doubt, because it can be designated by the hand with a sensible designation. For that which is intelligible cannot be designated by the hand, nor can it be understood that there is motion of a body made toward it. But we have already shown that length cannot be infinite, whether it be in the full or in the void.

The second [argument] is that a part must be understood in such a way that it is always with respect to some marked terminus: for example, if a marked terminus is posited at a tree, or at a mountain, or at the east, or at the west, then that tree to which the part is referred must be designated. But any part to which motion cannot reach cannot be designated; and whatever cannot be designated, to that there is no part. Yet it is true that the tree is what is sought, and the terminus of the part is the tree. But if the length which is between you and the tree be posited as infinite, then it will not be possible to designate it. And if you should say, “toward the part downward,” you will understand that “downward” has a terminus to which what goes down returns, and that is the lowest of all. Likewise also for the part “upward”: if this were not so, the motion would at some time go on to infinity, and no part would be assigned to it.

The third [argument] is that you understand that, among the things which tend downward, some are lower than others. But if there were not for the lower things a fixed marked terminus to which they return and in which they come to rest, such that what is nearer to it is lower and what is farther from it is higher, then nothing at all would be understood as lower, but the parts would have to be alike; therefore in them there would be no “above” or “below.” For so long as there is nothing lowest, there will be nothing lower than something else. It is therefore necessary that every straight motion have two different terminated parts. Now a part is an extension; but extension is only in a body, as will be shown by the impossibility of the void. It is necessary, therefore, that there be a bounded body which terminates the parts, in order that motion may be intelligible.

The second thesis which follows from the first is that the body which makes the parts be terminated must be a body surrounding the body that has straight motion, in the way that the heaven surrounds all the things that are in it. For it cannot be understood that there is a diversity in species and in nature between two parts, except through a surrounding body that embraces them, whose center is the most remote, and whose enclosing surface is the nearest, with respect to that which descends from it; and between that which is most remote, namely the center, and that which is nearest, namely the enclosing heaven, there is a diversity than which no greater can be in species and in nature.

This is proved as follows. The diversity of one part from another can only be either in the full or in the void. It cannot be in the void, because it has been proved that the void does not exist; and even if a void were posited, nevertheless it would be entirely alike to itself, so that no portion of it would be different from any other portion, in which one part could be assigned to a body rather than another. But if it is in the full, that is, in a body, then the diversity of the part must be either inside the body or outside.

If it is inside the body – and inside a body there is no diversity except on account of the center and the surrounding – then, if the body is full, the surrounding is what is nearest to it, and the center what is most remote. But if one were to posit a diversity of part from one point on the surrounding to another point on the surrounding in such a way that it does not pass through the center, that is, not along the diameter – the line which divides the circle into two halves – so that one of the points is different from the other, this too is absurd, because there is no diversity between them except in number; in nature they are alike, since each of them is as near as possible to the surrounding, and alike.

But if one posits that [the part] descends along the diameter through the center, then it would be unfitting to say that the diversity of two parts lies at the two ends or points of the diameter; for each of them is nearest to the same surrounding. Therefore there is no diversity of parts except according to center and surrounding. For if [a point] passes beyond the center, it falls from remoteness into nearness. Thus the center is the ultimate limit of distance, and the surrounding the ultimate limit of nearness.

But if the diversity of the parts is posited as outside the body, this too is impossible; for then either one body must be posited, as it were a center, and the parts be placed in its circuit, or two bodies. If it is one body, then nearness to the center will indeed be assigned, but the part of the extension will not be terminated; for the termini of the parts that are in its circuit are alike, and differ among themselves only in number. And the extension from the center has no definite terminus.

It is manifest, therefore, from these things that a part needs a designated terminus. But extension is not defined, because over one center there can be infinitely many circles of extensions differing among themselves. For it is not the center that assigns the circle, but the circle that necessarily assigns there to be one center.

If, however, there are two bodies, and someone says that nearness to the one is different from nearness to the other, this too is impossible. For the question why each body is rather brought near to that place in which it exists still remains; because, unless a part be first found, there will be no finding of any deviation of its body from that place, even though in nature the nearness of the one does not differ from the nearness of the other, if the bodies are similar. And if they are dissimilar, certainly their dissimilarity will not bring it about that there is a diversity of two parts, nor terminate them by means of that dissimilarity. Thus the question remains why each body is rather appropriated to that place in which it is, when the terminus of the one is not distinguished from the terminus of the other by reason of the one’s nearness being greater than the other’s. And if there were a void, it would be alike.

Furthermore, even if this were posited, and it were posited that the two termini of the two bodies were exchanged, so that the one passed over to the place of the other, it would nevertheless not follow from this that the diversity of the parts was taken away, although the bodies exchanged their places. And if one of the bodies were posited as destroyed, still that which we supposed regarding the diversity of the parts would remain, so long as we supposed the extension from one of the bodies to remain while the other is destroyed. And if we were to suppose the two bodies to be mingled together, then the diversity of the two bodies would indeed be destroyed, and yet the diversity of the two parts would remain. It is manifest, therefore, that the diversity of the two bodies is not the cause of the diversity of the two parts, and that this cannot be understood except through a surrounding body which terminates the two parts, by reason of the circumference and the center.

It is, however, impossible that this surrounding body should receive a straight motion, for then it would need a diversity of two parts and would require another body surrounding itself which would terminate those parts. But that which terminates parts has no need of parts; therefore there is in it no straight motion, whence it also follows that it does not receive a declination. Now the sense of “declination” is a motion from the parts, in length or in breadth, in a straight line. For if it were to receive a declination, then of necessity there would be for it a straight motion; and from the necessity of straight motion, there would be a diversity of two parts; and from the necessity of those, there would be yet another surrounding body which would terminate for it the two parts, as has been said.

Third sentence

The third thesis is that time accompanies motion; for every motion is in time, and time is the measure of motion.

For if there were no motion, neither would there be time; and if motion were not perceived, then assuredly time would not be perceived. Just as those did not perceive time who are said to have slept for a long period in the cave. And likewise, the man who sleeps from one morning until the next, when afterwards he wakes, does not perceive that time has passed, unless perhaps he notices in himself some change, from which he knows by experience that this cannot have come about except in time.

Thus, one waking from sleep, if he senses darkness, or light, or the passing of the shadow, knows the time of his sleep by this, because he knows from habitual observation the measures of time corresponding to such things. It is therefore necessary to assign a precise account of time, although this belongs more properly to natural philosophy.

We shall therefore say that between the beginning of any motion and the end set for it, without doubt there can be posited some other moving thing which traverses the designated distance according to its fixed speed or its fixed slowness, in such a way that by its motion it can pass through just as much space as that [first motion], neither more nor less. And it may happen that it passes through a greater space with a faster motion, even if it begins together with that [first motion].

But if it is slower, the space traversed will certainly be shorter. And if it begins together with it and is equal to it in speed, and afterwards comes to rest in the middle of the distance, then between the beginning of this motion and the middle point, and between that place where it came to rest, it is possible that there be the half of what can exist between the two ends of completing (or beginning) the motion. And similarly one can posit a quarter, or a sixth, or other such fractions.

Now these determinations are only according to, or upon, measure; therefore here measure already arises. But the definition of measure is other than the definition of motion. Thus measure is not the motion itself, that is, not the essence of motion, but it is in motion, and is something that properly belongs to it.

Therefore every motion has a measure, but in two ways:

one according to space, as when it is said, “he walked one league”;

the other according to the capacity we have spoken of, and this is called time, as when it is said, “he walked it in one hour.”

This measured capacity is time, and this is the measure of motion according as it is divided into its extension toward before and after.

And therefore it is impossible that [time] should be the measure of the body which is moved; for the motions of a stag and of an ant can be equal in time, while the measure of the distance traversed cannot be equal for them. Hence, time itself cannot be the measure of the distance, since one who walks two leagues and one who walks one league can be equal in time.

So this cannot be ascribed simply to speed and slowness, for two motions that agree in speed sometimes differ in this capacity. Thus the motion from east to west is equal in speed to the motion from east to south, that is, it is equal to its half in speed, though it is not equal to it in time.

Therefore this [time] is nothing other than the measure of motion in its stretching-out; for one motion is more “stretched out” than another. Hence the greatness of the stretching-out is the greatness of the time, and its smallness is the smallness of the time.

Now the root of this stretching-out is the root of duration and of time, since the meaning of “time” is the duration of motion, that is, the stretching-out of motion. And time can be nothing other than the duration of local motion, because nothing is understood as time except that which is divided into before and after, whose “before” in no way remains together with its “after”.

From the fact, then, that it passes and is finished, it necessarily follows that two parts of time cannot be together at once; and nothing ceases of itself except motion. And whatever is together with the earlier part of [a motion] is called earlier, and whatever is together with that which is later is called later.

Now, since it is clear that time is the measure of motion, it was further necessary that motion should have some standard measure by which it is measured. And it must be that this standard measure be known in itself, because by it all other things are measured, just as the cubit by which cloths are measured.

Thus the daily motion of the heaven is quicker than all other motions and more manifest to the creature. For the sun, of all sensible things, is the most manifest, and by it also other sensible things are perceived. Therefore they took that motion as the measure by which to measure all other motions.

The motion of the heaven therefore has its measure in itself, and it measures things other than itself, just as the cubit has its measure in itself and measures other things.

Thus with respect to time it is understood that time is the measure of the motion of the heaven, according as it is divided into before and after, and what in it is “before” does not remain together with what in it is “after”.

Fourth sentence

The fourth thesis is that from the motion of these bodies which can receive composition, there follows without doubt in them an inclination to be in some particular part [of space], and that in them there is a nature that makes it necessary for them to have this inclination. Thus, motion, nature, and inclination are three distinct things.

For if you fill a flask with air and submerge it under water, it immediately springs back toward the region of the air; and in such springing-back one recognizes that there is motion, inclination, and nature.

But if you hold it under water by force, then indeed there will be no motion; yet you will feel its inclination, and that it resists your hand and pushes you back, seeking its own place. And this is what is meant by inclination.

When, however, it is on top of the water, there is neither motion nor inclination, but the nature remains, which makes it necessary that there be in it an inclination toward its own terminus whenever it is separated from its proper region.

By this example we intend nothing else than to make clear that every body is receptive of motion, and that in every subject receptive of motion there must necessarily be an inclination, without doubt.

The proof of this is clear in composite things; for they are not composed except through motion. In a simple body, however, if there is a natural inclination toward the part to which its motion is, then indeed, if it is left to nature, it will move toward that part. But if it does not move toward it, then, if it is left to nature, there will certainly be no inclination in it toward that [part].

When it no longer has an inclination toward that [part], then it will have an inclination toward the terminus in which it actually is. Now that some other body distant from it should be posited at a terminus toward which it has no inclination, and toward no other [terminus] either, is impossible; for from this it would follow that there is a motion not in time, which is impossible. That, therefore, from which this would follow is itself impossible.

If someone says, “We do not concede that from this it follows that there is a motion not in time,” we shall say the following.

A body having an inclination, for example downward, when it is thrown upward, has a natural inclination resisting the inclination of the violent motion, and this makes there be slowness in the motion, such that the greater the inclination, the stronger the resistance and the slower the motion; and the lesser the inclination, the faster the motion.

The disparity, therefore, of motion in speed and in slowness is according to the comparison of the disparity of inclinations. We shall therefore say that if we suppose a body which has no inclination, and we move it ten palm-breadths, without doubt this will be in time, and let this time be called an hour.

If then we suppose a body which does have inclination, and we move it ten palm-breadths against its inclination, its motion will certainly be slower. Let us suppose that it is completed, for example, in ten hours. Then we shall say that a body can be posited in which there is one-tenth of that inclination; and it will then follow that it will be moved in one hour. For the ratio of the time of one motion to the time of another motion is as the ratio of one inclination to another inclination.

The motion, therefore, of a body in which there is one-tenth of that inclination will be equal in time to the motion of the body in which there is no inclination and this is absurd. For just as it is unfitting to differ in the measure of inclination and yet be equal in the time of motion, so likewise it is unfitting to differ in having inclination and not having it, and yet be equal in the measure of motion.

By this proof it is established that it is necessary that every body have a natural inclination either toward the part to which it is moved, or toward another part different from that, however the case may fall out.

If someone further says, “How will you answer an opponent who objects to your second proposition, namely that for motion to be not in time is unfitting?” it will be said:

If motion is posited as not in time, then it must be either according to extension (length), or not according to extension (length). If it is not according to extension, it will not be motion at all, if indeed it happens.

But if it is according to extension and in a spatial distance, we have already said that all extensions are divisible, and that “non-equal” (impar) substances, that is, indivisibles, cannot exist. Therefore it is impossible to conceive an indivisible extension, nor can there be an indivisible space; therefore time cannot be conceived as indivisible.

For time is the measure of motion, and it is also necessary that every motion be divided according to the division of the distance of the motion. The part which is at the beginning of the distance will therefore be prior to that part which is after it. And this is what is meant by saying that motion is in time.

In general, how can there be a motion in a space of ten cubits without the first cubit being prior to the second? But wherever priority and posteriority are found, time has already been found to be posited before the motion according to extension; and that it should not be divided is impossible, for it has been proved that every extension is divisible.

Therefore extension, body, motion, and time these four things are necessarily divisible; and it is impossible to conceive in them any part which is indivisible or non-divided, as has been said.

Fifth sentence

The fifth thesis is that these composite bodies are not moved naturally except by rectilinear motion, because every body needs a natural place.

For if it is left free in that region which is assigned to it, it will come to rest there. Therefore that region is natural to it, toward which it has its inclination.

If, however, it is separated from its own place to another place, then the place which it seeks is natural to it. Therefore it is natural for it to incline toward its own natural place.

Separated, then, from its proper place, it will necessarily move toward that [place], and will rest in it when it has reached it. And since its inclination is toward that [place] alone, it will not move toward it except by the path which is nearest to it.

For if it is diverted from the path that is nearest to it, then it is turning away from it, not inclining toward it. But the path which is nearest among all the paths that are between two points is a straight line. Therefore its motion must be according to a straight line.

But since it has been proved that there is no “part” [of the universe] except in the center and in the circumference, the natural motion of these bodies which are contained within the outermost circumference is divided into two rectilinear motions: one of them is toward the middle (the center), the other is from the middle toward the surrounding [outer] region.

Discourse on the Heavenly Bodies - Diccio de corporibus caelestibus

The theses concerning this are the following: that the heavenly bodies are movable by a soul and by will; that they perceive individual things as soon as these occur; and that, by the fact that they are moved, they intend something.

They do not intend to take care of the lower things here below; rather, they desire to be made like to a substance nobler than themselves, between which and bodies there is no communication at all. This substance is called by the philosophers a naked intelligence, and in the Law (i.e. revealed religion) they are called spirits near to God. And the intelligences are many.

Furthermore, the heavenly bodies are of diverse natures, and none of them is the cause of the being of another among them.

First Thesis

The first thesis is that they (the heavens) are moved by will.

That they are moved is obvious, and we have already proved it. We shall now add something, saying this:

If the surrounding body (the outermost heaven) were posited as being at rest, it would then have a proper position, such that one half of it, some designated half, could now, without doubt, be above us; and it would not be impossible that that same designated half be placed beneath us.

Now the relation of the parts of what revolves in a circle to each other is the same in all directions. Therefore it is impossible to distinguish one part of what revolves circularly from another.

For if one of its parts were assigned as the “upper” part, that part would then be different from that which is assigned as “lower”; and if that were so, it would indeed be composite. But a composite exists only on account of the straight motion of simple things; and it is manifestly impossible that the heaven itself should have straight motion.

In something simple, likewise, no one part of the surrounding body is distinguished from another. Therefore heavenly bodies are receptive of motion.

But whatever is receptive of motion, we have already said, must have in its nature an inclination. And it cannot be that the inclination of the heaven is toward being moved by a straight motion; for it does not admit of straight motion, since in that case it would require another body to terminate its parts.

Its inclination, therefore, is toward exchanging its parts by a circular revolution of itself around the middle (the center), because no part of the place in which the circuit lies is more worthy than another with respect to the heaven.

Now that its inclination to this kind of motion should be from pure nature alone is impossible; it must rather be on the side of will. For natural motion is only a flight from one position in order to seek another, in which, once it has arrived, it comes to rest; and it is impossible that it should naturally return to the position from which it departed.

For if that earlier position were suitable to it, why would it depart from it? And if it were unsuitable, why would it return to it?

But there is no place in the heaven to which it does not return after having left it by its motion; and thus it is always withdrawing and returning. This, therefore, does not come from nature alone, but from will and choice.

Now there is no will without imagination. And whatever has imagination and will is usually called an animal; for a body, as body, does not have imagination or will, but only through its proper nature and proper form, which is called soul.

The motion of the heaven is therefore by will, and is the motion of an animal.

Second Thesis

The second thesis is that the mover of the heaven can only be a pure intelligible reality, not receptive of change; nor can it be a mere nature.

By “intelligible” we mean a substance that is stable and does not receive change. By “changeable” we mean that which receives change.

We therefore say that from something stable in a single disposition there proceeds only something stable in a single disposition. Hence it may be granted that the cause of the position (rest) of the earth comes from a stable cause, because it always remains thus in one disposition.

But the positions of the heaven always remain in change. It is therefore impossible that the heaven’s motion should be from a stable, unchangeable thing in the sense that the same unchanging state suffices for all its particular motions.

For that which makes a thing be moved from A to B does not, remaining in the same disposition, make it be moved from B to C; for this motion is other than that one. As long as the cause remains in the same disposition, nothing else proceeds from it than that which previously proceeded.

Therefore its adaptation to move something from the second terminus to the third terminus must arise from something new that happens to it just as that which makes a thing move in different ways does so on account of the diversity of its quality: for when it is cooled, it moves in one way, and when it is heated, in another.

Hence it is necessary that that which makes something “have to be” is itself changed when that which is to be is changed.

If, then, that which makes something “have to be” is will, there must be a change of wills and a renewal of them. Hence there must be a renewal of particular wills; for a universal will does not suffice to produce a particular motion.

Your general will to make a journey does not of itself produce the motion of your foot in stepping toward a designated place, unless in you there be renewed a particular will of passing to that place. And after that, a new imagination is renewed in you of arriving at another place beyond it, so that from that imagination there may arise a particular will of arriving at the second step.

But this does not arise except from the universal will, whose intention is that the motion continue up to the end of the journey.

Therefore motions are renewed, and imagination and the will of motion are renewed. The step, then, proceeds from the will, and the will proceeds from a particular imagination, together with the universal will.

The particular imagination, in turn, proceeds from motion. The example is this: someone walking in darkness toward the light of a candle, which does not allow him to see ahead of himself except as far as one step.

He imagines, then, one step toward the candle-light; and from this imagination, together with the universal will that moves him, there arises a particular will for that step. And thus the first step comes to be, which had to be produced by a will corresponding to that imagination.

Afterwards, that step is the cause of seeing and imagining the next step; and thus, from the first step there arises the imagination of the second, and from that imagination arises the will of the second step, and from the will the motion and so with the others.

There cannot be a particular motion except in this way. In a similar manner, the motion of the heaven can be understood.

Now whatever is changeable by a change of wills and imaginations is called a soul, not an intelligence.

Third Thesis

The third thesis is that the heavenly bodies are not moved out of concern for the lower world; for this world here below is not their care at all. Rather, by their motion they intend something else, which is far more exalted than they are.

This is proved as follows. Every voluntary motion is either bodily and sensible or intelligible. Bodily sensible motion arises from desire (concupiscence) or from anger.

It is impossible that the motion of the heaven arise from concupiscence. For concupiscence is a power that desires that by which life is preserved. But whatever does not fear that it might be diminished or destroyed cannot possibly have concupiscence.

It is also impossible that it be from anger. For anger is a power that repels what is contrary and harmful, which tends to diminish or destroy. And since concupiscence is a power that seeks what befits [the being], and anger is a power that repels what does not befit [it], and since it is impossible for the heaven to be diminished or destroyed, its intention cannot be of this kind. It must therefore be intelligible.

That the heaven cannot be diminished or destroyed is proved thus. If this were possible, it would necessarily be brought about either by the removal of some accident from that which is its continuity namely, by breaking or dividing it or by the removal of its natural form, or by the complete privation of itself, that is, by the destruction of its matter and form, which would be its annihilation.

But it is false that the heaven can be broken or split; for that would be that its parts be separated in length or breadth, along straight directions that is what “separation” means and this, as has been shown above, necessarily involves [the heaven’s] receiving a certain kind of motion.

Yet it is evident from what has been said previously that the heaven does not receive that kind of motion.

It is also false that its form can be removed from its matter; for then either the matter would remain void of form which is impossible or it would be clothed with another form, and then there would be generation and corruption, which is likewise impossible. For generation and corruption necessarily occur only with the reception of rectilinear motion.

Moreover, in generation no form is received except one that is naturally different from the first; and thus it would need another place than its own, to which it would have to be moved by a straight motion as when the matter of air, when stripped of the form of air and clothed with the form of water, is not understood to become water except because it is moved by a straight motion to the proper terminus of water.

That [a thing] should be deprived of its very root, namely matter, is likewise impossible; for whatever has no matter cannot possibly be deprived after it exists just as it is impossible for such a thing to exist after privation.

Now we have already shown that whatever begins to exist has matter.

But because the possibility of its inception, before its inception, is a true designation of something, it will therefore need something in which it may subsist. Hence there is nothing that is deprived of something except matter, so that in this way the possibility of its being remains in its matter after the privation of it. Otherwise it would be deprived by such a privation that after it it would be impossible for it to be. But it is impossible that that which is should be converted into the impossible.

Whence, since the possible remains, this possibility, which is a relative designation, necessarily requires a substance through which it subsists. Therefore, after it has been proved from these things that the heaven cannot be changed, then its motion will not be from concupiscence, nor from anger.

It remains, therefore, that its intention is intelligible.

But it is impossible that their intention should be to care for these generable and corruptible things, in such a way that the intention of their being and their motion should be these lower things. For whatever is sought for the sake of something else is, without doubt, more base than that on account of which it is sought.

From this it would follow that the higher things would be more base than the lower, although the higher are eternal, not receptive of destruction nor of change; while these lower things are diminished and changeable, and are in potency. And the whole earth, with all that is in it, is a very small part in comparison with the body of the sun. For the sun is a hundred and sixty-five and a third times larger than the earth; yet the body of the sun itself is minimal in comparison with its own orbit, and even more minimal in comparison with the outermost sphere.

How then will the intention of such a body be to care for these vile things? And how shall the intention of that eternal motion be these vile things? And how are these not vile in comparison with those, when the noblest of these lower things is the animal, and among animals the more excellent is man?

Yet the greater part of men is imperfect; and that which is more perfect among them never reaches the completion of perfection, because it is never freed from the variety of dispositions, and is therefore always imperfect namely, it does not have that which it is possible for it to have, and if it had it, it would be more perfect.

But the higher substances are perfect and are in act, in which there is nothing in potency except that which is the lowest among all the things that are understood of them namely, position, as will be shown. Therefore that which is more noble does not intend in itself what is more base, for the sake of what is base, in any way.

If, however, someone were to say that, if whatever is sought for the sake of something else is more base than it, then the shepherd is more base than the sheep, and the teacher than the disciple, and the prophet than the people for the shepherd is not sought except for the sheep, nor the teacher except for the disciple, nor the prophet except for the instruction of the people one will answer that the shepherd is more base than the sheep in that he is shepherd, but he is more noble in that he is man; and his humanity in him is something other than that which is sought in him on account of shepherding alone.

Hence, if nothing else were considered in him except this alone, that he is a shepherd, then according to this he would indeed be more base than the sheep. Likewise, the dog that keeps the sheep is necessarily more base than the sheep, unless he has something else besides this that he is not only keeper of sheep such as being apt for hunting; then he is granted to be more noble.

But in so far as he is only keeper of sheep, he is more base than they; for that which is sought for the sake of something else follows upon that other thing how then will it not be more base than it? And similarly with the teacher and the prophet: the nobility of the prophet, in that he is perfect in himself, is only from the properties by which he is noble in himself, even if he did not instruct the people.

But if nothing else were considered of him except this alone, that he instructs the people, it would follow from this that that which is sought to be instructed would be more noble than that which instructs.

If someone should say that their intention can be that good “flows forth” from them, so that what is should be good simply, and that what proceeds from them should be beautiful (for to do good is beautiful), and thus that their intention would not be to care for lower things as regards the lower, it will be said that this saying, that “to do good is in itself something beautiful,” is a common saying and credible to all, in order that they may be kept away from unclean things.

But if it is carefully considered according to truth, something will be found in its subject and predicate to be inquired into and distinguished.

For the subject, which is “to do good,” is divided into that which is done essentially, and that which is done from intention. That which is done essentially does not signify imperfection; its sense is that there is an essence from which something proceeds, not by an intention of itself to do that thing, and such an action is not from will nor from intention.

Now we have already said that circular motion is voluntary. But that which is done from intention signifies an imperfection of the one intending. For necessarily it is better for him to act than not to act, in order that by acting he may acquire for himself something that was not there. If he were perfect, he would not need to acquire anything further.

If, however, this is not the case, then there will not be intention nor will in any way.

As for the predicate, namely “it is beautiful,” it is divided into that which is beautiful in itself, that which is beautiful for the recipient, and that which is beautiful for the agent.

That which is beautiful in itself is what is called the being of the universe; for when you compare it with the removal of the being of the universe, you will find that its being is better than non-being. The essence of the First is such that from it there proceeds that which is good, but it is not good primarily for itself; nothing is acquired for it, nor is it “good for the recipient,” since there is no other thing besides the universe such that it would be called good for the universe.

That which is beautiful for the recipient is called beautiful and signifies an imperfection of the recipient and its need for something whose being is better for it than not-being.

That which is beautiful for the agent signifies an imperfection of the agent; for if he were perfect, he would not need to bring goodness and perfection into effect.

And this saying, that to do good in the case of man is liberal and perfect, not imperfect, became so well-known only in order that malice might be removed from man. Good, therefore, is said relatively with respect to his nature; but in truth, and in comparison to perfection, it is absolutely a diminution.

When this has been made clear, we shall say that if doing good were not something good for the agent, then it would not be done with intention, and it cannot be understood that there is will there. It is therefore necessary that we prove in what way it is good for them, so that we may understand their intention.

Fourth Thesis: On Proving the Existence of Naked Intelligences

The motion of the heaven truly signifies the existence of an excellent substance, not changeable, which is not a body and is not impressed into a body. A substance of this kind is called a naked intelligence.

But the motion does not signify that it exists except by the removal of your finitude; for it has been said that this motion is from eternity and without end. Therefore it always needs a ruler, that is, a power moving it without ceasing.

Now it is impossible that in a body there should be a power for doing something infinite. For every body is divisible; and it is divided because we posit it as divisible in potency. If we imagine it divided in this way, then some part of its power will either be something that moves without end and then the part will not differ from the whole, which is impossible or it will be something that moves with an end, and similarly another part will be a mover with an end; and so the composite of them will be finite.

It is therefore certain that we cannot understand that there is a power for an infinite effect which is in a body. Thus this motion needs a mover stripped of matter.

Now a mover is of two kinds: one kind is as that which is loved moves the lover, and that which is sought moves the seeker; the other is as the soul moves the body, and gravity moves a body downward. The first mode is that for the sake of which the motion is; the second is that from which the motion is.

Circular motion requires the continual presence of an agent from which the motion is; and this agent is nothing other than a soul which is changeable. For from a naked intelligence, which is not changed, no changeable motion proceeds, as has already been said.

Therefore the soul that causes the motion will be of finite power, because it is enformed in a body; but there is infused into it, by something which is not a body, an infinite power, and which is without doubt free from matter, so that its power lies beyond finitude. This latter is not that which produces the motion, but the motion is on account of it, in so far as it is loved and intended not in so far as it maintains the motion.

Nor can it be understood that a mover which is not moved in itself moves something else except by way of love, as a thing that is loved moves the lover.

If someone should say, “How can it be understood that an intelligence is a mover by love?” it will be said that a mover of this sort is either such that it is itself sought, as science moves the seeker of science by the love of it and that which is sought is its attainment; or it is such that someone seeks to be assimilated to something, as a teacher is loved by the disciple and moves him so that he may become like the teacher.

Similarly, every desired thing that has something greater in itself is loved in such a way that others want to become like it in that respect.

But this motion of the heaven cannot be of the first division. For what is understood about an intelligence is that it is not possible to understand that a body could receive its essence; it has been shown that an intelligence cannot subsist in a body.

Therefore nothing remains except that [the heavenly soul] loves to be assimilated to it, by acquiring a form similar to it, and to approach it through conformity, as a son is assimilated to his father and a disciple to his master.

Nor can this be by the command of that [intelligence] or by the obedience of this [soul]. For the one who commands has an intention in commanding which signifies diminishment and reception of change and the one who obeys must have an intention in obeying, and that intention is the thing intended.

To fulfill a command merely as a command, without fruit, is impossible.

Since, then, it is certain that this cannot be so except by way of likening oneself to the beloved, it will have three conditions:

First, that in the soul which seeks to be assimilated there be an imagination of the form that is sought and of the essence that is loved; otherwise it will have a will to seek what it does not know, and this is impossible.

Second, that that form be pre-eminent with it; otherwise the fervor of that love could not be understood.

Third, that it be possible for it to acquire that form according to its own aptitude; for if this were impossible, then it could not be understood to seek assimilation to it by a pure intelligible will, but only by opinion and estimation, which are accidental and easy to remove, and which would not endure always.

It is therefore necessary that there be in the soul of the heaven a grasp of the beauty of that beloved, so that from the imagination of that beauty the fervor of its love may grow, which makes it contemplate what is above, so that from this there may proceed to it the motion by which it can be applied to that to which it seeks to be assimilated.

Thus imagination is the cause of the beauty of the fervor of love, and the fervor of love is the cause of inquiry, and inquiry is the cause of motion.

And that beloved is either the First and True [Being], or it is that which is nearest to the First among the proximate angels, that is, the naked, eternal, unchangeable intelligences, to which nothing is lacking of the perfections that it is possible to have.

If someone should say that it is necessary to distinguish between the ardor of this love, and that which is ardently loved, and the form which is sought to be acquired by motion, it will be said that the course of every inquiry is toward that which is proper or near to the Necessary Being, which is stable in act and in which there is nothing in potency; for to be in potency is an imperfection. For it is thereby understood that it does not have the completion of the things it can acquire.

For whatever is such that there is something in it in potency in any way, that thing is imperfect in that respect; and its inquiry is only that what is in it in potency may come to be in act.

Therefore the inquiry of the universe is the acquisition of perfection; and whatever is such that there are more things in it in potency is, without doubt, more base; and whatever is in act from every side is perfect.

But man, in his substance, is sometimes in potency and sometimes in act.

When, however, man is in act in his own substance, he nonetheless does not cease to be in potency in his intentions, nor does he attain the end of perfection while he is in the body, nor is potency removed from him.

The celestial body, on the other hand, is in no way in potency as to its substance; for it has not begun to be, nor is it in potency even as to its essential intentions nor as to its figure, but it is in act and possesses whatever it was possible for it to have. It therefore has, among figures, the more noble, which is the spherical; and among dispositions, the more noble, namely luminosity; and likewise with respect to the other forms. Hence there remains nothing but one thing which it is not possible for it to have in act, namely position.

For when you have placed it in some position, you can at once also place it in another position, because it cannot, according to one disposition, be at the same time in two positions. And if there were not in it some small degree of potency, it would be almost like the naked intelligences. Yet none of the positions is more worthy for it than another beforehand, so that this one should always accompany it with the others left aside.

But since it was not possible for it to have all positions in act, whereas it is possible for them all to be united in species by succession, it therefore willed that whatever position it might have, it should have that in act, and that all should exist by succession, in order that the species of positions might be perpetually in act for it.

Thus for man since it was not possible for him always to remain personally in act it has been ordained that he should always remain in species, according to a mode of succession.

It is also proper to circular motion likewise to be present in act, in that it is almost removed from variation; for a straight motion, if it is natural, will vary in speed as it approaches its end, whereas circular motion persists in one and the same way. Therefore, after the celestial body has striven to keep for itself the species of positions perpetually in act, it is now assimilated to the noble substances as far as was more possible for it.

Hence, because it seeks to be assimilated, it serves the Lord of ages himself; and by serving, it intends to draw near, and by drawing near it intends to be closer still; and its intention in this, that it seeks to be near, is to be near to Him in properties, not in place for that is impossible for it. Therefore this is the intention which causes the heavens to be moved.

The fifth thesis is that experience shows that there is a multitude of heavens. Hence it is necessary that their natures be diverse, and that they not be of the same species, which is proved in two ways.

First, because if they were all of the same species, then the likeness of any parts to others would be as the likeness of other parts to others; and if this were so, they would all be one, joined (or confused), not distinct. For the cause of distinction is nothing other than a distinction of nature: just as water does not mix with oil when it is poured upon it, but remains by it distinct. Yet when water is mixed with water, it is fused with it, and oil with oil.

So, just as you know by the mixture of the parts of water their likeness among themselves, and by their distinction from the parts of oil their unlikeness to them, so also in the heavens; for nothing prevents those things from being mixed together if they are alike.

Second, because one of them is lower and another higher, and one surrounds and another is surrounded, which shows a dissimilarity of natures and a diversity of species. For if that which is lower were of the same species as that which is higher, it could indeed be allowed that it be moved to the place of the higher, just as it can be allowed of certain parts of water and air that they move to what is above and below the boundary of water and air. But if this could be allowed of the heaven, then it would be receptive of straight motion, since by straight motion the lower is moved to the boundary of the higher, as with the elements; yet it is manifestly impossible for the heavens to receive straight motion.

The sixth thesis is that one of these celestial bodies cannot be the cause of another, nor can it be granted that any body is the occasion or proximate cause of another body’s being.

For one body cannot act upon another unless it is touching it, or is near it, or is directly opposite to it, and in general unless it stands in some relation to it just as the sun produces illumination in the body opposite to it when nothing intervenes to hinder, and as fire produces combustion in a thing properly placed or touching it.

It is therefore necessary that there be something there which stands in some way with respect to it, in order that the acting body may act upon it, and from its action there results something else. But if there is nothing there, then it is impossible that anything else be made, generated, or created from the body.

If, however, someone were to say, “Is not fire the cause of the air which comes to be when fire is kindled under water, and then the body of air proceeds from the cause, fire?”, it will be answered that air is not a body primarily proceeding from fire, but proceeds from another body that stands in some relation to fire, which fire has touched and acted upon.

But now we are speaking only of the celestial bodies, which are first bodies, not generated from another body; for we have already shown that if they were generated and corruptible, they would be receptive of straight motion, which is impossible in their case.

It is therefore clear that one of the first bodies is not the cause that another is.

If someone should say, “Why did you say that no action proceeds from a body unless it is applied to that in which the action occurs, by touching it or otherwise?”, it will be said that this is proved as follows: if a body acts, it acts either according to its matter alone, or according to its form alone, but through the mediation of matter.

Now it is false that it acts according to matter alone. For the very notion of matter is nothing but this that it is receptive of form. Hence, if it acted, it would not act by reason of its receptivity, but in some other way; and then there would be in it two things: one is that by which there is reception, by which alone it is matter; and another is that by which action is produced, by which alone it is form for nothing else is understood by “form” than this. Thus there would be matter and there would be a form in it, and it would not be stripped [of form].

It is likewise false that it acts according to form alone, because stripped form does not have being of itself; its being is in matter.

But if form acts through the mediation of matter, then matter will either be a true medium, so that form is the cause of matter and matter is the cause of that thing in which the action takes place, and then form is the cause of a cause, and it follows from this that matter, as matter, has already acted which we have already refuted; or else matter will be such a medium that, by its mediation, [the form] is applied to something in order to act upon it, as the form of fire, by the mediating matter, is at one time here and acts upon something it touches here, and at another time there and acts upon something it touches there.

And this makes it absolutely necessary that there be something here or there for the body to act upon.

The seventh thesis is that there must be many naked intelligences, and it cannot be granted that they are fewer in number than the celestial bodies.

For it has been established that the heavens are of diverse natures and that they are local, that is, possible beings. Hence their being requires a cause; and from one there proceeds only one. Therefore there must be many, so that from each one something one may proceed.

And they must also differ in species, so that diverse species may proceed from them especially since it has already been said that those things which are many in number cannot be understood to belong to one species except on account of the multiplicity of matter.

But that which is not in matter, if it were multiplied, would be multiplied only on account of a diversity of species, which is a property arising from a difference by which one differs from another not by reason of an accident. For it is impossible that some accident be attached to a thing which cannot be predicated of its species.

Therefore, since there is no matter, there will be no multiplicity except according to species.

Moreover, these intelligences must be desirable to the souls of the heavens. There is therefore a diversity among the souls on account of their causes and on account of their inquiry to be assimilated to them, since it is impossible that there be only one single thing which is desired by all through their motion; for it has been shown in mathematics that the motions of the heavenly bodies are diverse.

For if that which is sought by them were one, their inquiry would be one.

To each of them, then, there is a soul appropriate to it, to move it by presence and action; and there is a naked intelligence appropriate to it, to be desired by it through motion. The souls are celestial species because of their appropriation to their bodies; and the intelligences themselves are species nearest to God, because they do not depend on matters and because of the affinity of their properties to the Lord of lords know this.

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HERE BEGINS THE FIFTH TREATISE,
ON HOW ALL THINGS HAVE BEING FROM THE FIRST PRINCIPLE,
AND HOW THERE IS AN ORDER OF CAUSES AND THINGS CAUSED,
AND HOW ALL THINGS COME TO THE ONE WHO IS THE CAUSE OF CAUSES.

This treatise is, as it were, the flower of divine matters – that which is obtained from them, and which is finally sought from them after the knowledge of the properties of the First and True.

The first point that is contained here is this, namely, that it has been said above that the First is one in every way absolutely, and that from the One there proceeds only one. But the things that are, are many, and it cannot be said that some of them are arranged as coming after others; for this does not occur in all.

It is true, however, that one can say that the heavenly bodies are naturally prior to the elements, and the simple heavenly [bodies] prior to the composite; yet this does not happen in all cases, for among the four natures there is no succession, nor between horse and man, nor between palm-tree and vine, nor between blackness and whiteness, nor between heat and cold, but they are equal in being. How then do they proceed from the One?

But if they have proceeded from some composite in which there is multiplicity, then whence does that multiplicity itself arise? In the end, moreover, it is necessary that multiplicity return to one, and this is impossible.

The escape in this matter is to say that from the First only one proceeds, but that that which follows upon it has something else [in it], yet not on account of this, that it is from the First. Thus, a multiplicity comes to be in it because of that other which is in it; and this will be the principle from which there proceeds a multiplicity of things coeval with one another, and then ordered, one after another. Afterwards, however, the coeval and the ordered are joined into one. Therefore this one, on account of the multiplicity that is in it, has caused there to have to be a multiplicity, and for this reason the things that are have been multiplied; and it cannot be otherwise than thus.

But the mode in which this multiplicity proceeds is as follows. The First is one and true, because its being is pure being, whose thatness is its very quiddity; and whatever is apart from it is possible. Moreover, the being of every possible thing is other than its quiddity, as has been said.

Now every being that is not necessary being is accidental to its quiddity. Hence a quiddity is required in order that being may be accidental to it.

Therefore, with respect to its quiddity, it will be possible as regards being; and with respect to its cause, it will be necessary as regards being, since it has been shown that whatever is possible in itself is necessary on account of something other than itself. It therefore has two “judgements”: necessity in one respect, and possibility in another.

Thus, insofar as it is possible, it is in potency; and insofar as it is necessary, it is in act. Possibility is in it from itself, and necessity from another than itself; therefore there is in it a multiplicity: one element which is like matter, and another which is like form.

Now that which is like matter is possibility, and that which is like form is necessity, which is in it from another than itself.

Accordingly, from the First there proceeds a naked intelligence, which has from the First only its existence, necessary through that First by which it must be; but it has possibility from itself, not from the First. Furthermore, it knows itself, and it knows its principle.

Now if it knows both itself and its principle, since its being is from Him, and its consideration is multiplied on this account, then, in view of this multiplicity of consideration, there proceeds from it a multiplicity; and thereafter it does not cease to be multiplied by degrees until one comes to the last of things that are.

Since therefore a multiplicity was required, and there can be no multiplicity save in this way and the multiplicity itself is very small then the things that were first were not very numerous, but by degrees they fell into multiplicity, so that there are intelligences, and souls, and bodies, and accidents. And these are the divisions of all things that are.

If someone should ask how their order may be discerned, it will be said that from the First there proceeds a naked intelligence in which there is a duality, as has been said: one element which is in it from the First, and another which is in it from itself. Therefore, from it there proceeds an angel and a heaven.

Now by “angel” is understood a naked intelligence. And it is necessary that that which is more noble proceed from the more noble form. But intelligence is more noble; and the form which it has from the First, namely necessity, is more noble. Therefore, from it there proceeds a second intelligence, inasmuch as it is considered as necessary being; and from it there proceeds the highest heaven, inasmuch as possibility in it is considered, which is for it as matter.

From the second intelligence, there proceeds a third intelligence and the circle of the signs [the zodiac]. And from the third intelligence there proceeds a fourth intelligence and the circle of Saturn; and from the fourth, a fifth and the circle of Jupiter; and from the fifth, a sixth and the circle of Mars; and from the sixth, a seventh and the circle of the Sun; and from the seventh, an eighth and the circle of Venus; and from the eighth a ninth and the circle of Mercury; and from the ninth, a tenth and the circle of the Moon. And thus the being of all the heavens together is completed.

But those things which are more noble, except the First, have proceeded as nineteen: ten intelligences and nine heavens. And this is true unless the number of the heavens be greater than this; for if it is greater, it will also be necessary to add to the number of intelligences, in order to complete the number of all the heavens.

But observers have detected only these nine. And after these, the first of the lower things began to be, namely the four elements, which are without doubt diverse, since their places are naturally diverse. For some of them require the middle, and some the surrounding [place]. How then will their nature be one, since they are receptive of generation and corruption, as will be said in the books on natural philosophy?

It is therefore necessary that there be for them a common matter. But since it cannot be understood that a body should be made from a body, then it cannot be granted that the celestial bodies alone are the cause of the being of the elements.

And since the matter of the four elements is common, it cannot be granted that many [agents] are the cause of the being of their matter. But since their forms are diverse, it cannot be allowed that the cause of their forms be anything but many diverse [agents], included under four causes or four species, since there are four forms.

Nor can it be granted that form alone be the cause of the being of matter; for if it were so, it would follow that matter would be destroyed with the destruction of the form. But it is not so, since matter remains and puts on another form; nor can it be denied that there is, for form, some dignity and efficiency with respect to the being of hyle (prime matter).

For if there were nothing of this sort, then, when the form had been removed, hyle alone would remain, with some other cause of it remaining. Accordingly, the being of matter is from many [things], one of which is a separated substance by which the root of its being is [established]; yet it is not through that alone, but also through something else, just as a moving power is the cause of there being motion, on this condition, namely, if there is a potency of receiving it in the subject just as the sun is the cause of the ripening of fruits, but on the condition of a natural power in the fruits which is receptive of the impression of ripeness.

In like manner, the being of matter is from a separated intelligence, but its being in act is from another that co-operates with it, namely form. But the appropriation of one form only and not another is not from the separated intelligence; rather, another cause is needed which may make something in matter more worthy to receive one form than another, especially since matter is common to the elements, that is, in such a way that heaven disposes matter so that it is rather apt to receive one form than another.

And this is not done in the first place except through the celestial bodies, for on account of their nearness and remoteness to matter, they cause it to receive diverse aptitudes; and when it has been duly disposed, they receive form from the separated intelligence.

But because these celestial bodies agree in a universal nature from which circular motion proceeds in all of them, therefore they have made matter to be absolutely apt to receive any form whatsoever. And because each one of them has its own proper nature, therefore each of the heavens ought properly to be apt to some one of the forms rather than to another; and thereafter there comes from intelligence a form for each particular matter.

Accordingly, the root of corporeal matter is from a separated intelligible substance. That, however, which is bounded by parts is from the celestial bodies, and that it is apt is likewise from them. And it can be granted that from one of them there is in one of them the aptitude for each particular [form], as fire, when it meets air, makes it apt to receive the igneous form which is poured into it by the intelligence.

However, there is a difference between being apt and being in potency.
For the sense of potency is: to be receptive of a form, and to be of such a sort that a form may be poured into it.
But the sense of aptitude is: that it be more ready to receive properly one form rather than another.

Potency, therefore, is equally toward being and not-being of something.
Aptitude, on the other hand, is toward being only, so that one of the potencies is more worthy than another.

Thus the matter of air is equally receptive of the form of water and of fire, but the dominance of coldness makes it more apt to receive the form of water-ness; therefore it is converted into water through the reception of the form of water-ness from the Intelligence, when it has acquired aptitude from a cause in coldness.

And in like manner, a form closer to a body that is always in motion is more worthy to be the form of fire, on account of the relation of motion to heat; but the matter which is more worthy of rest and coldness is that which is more remote from them.

In this way, then, these bodies that are receptive of generation and corruption namely the elements received being.

It is thus clear from this what the first aptitude of prime matter is with respect to form in general, and then what is the cause of its aptitude with respect to the four natures. And then, from the mixture of these elements, other bodies come forth.

The first that proceeds from them is what is formed beneath the Moon, as far as water, namely: smoke and vapor and the star that seems to fall, and fiery javelins, and the like.

The second from them are minerals,
the third, plants,
the fourth, animals.

The last of these is man.

And all these come forth from the mixture of the elements, since from the mixture of the watery and airy forms vapor is made, and from the mixture of fiery and earthy [forms] smoke is made.

From the mixture, then, of the first [elements], there arise those things that come to be beneath the Moon, up to water.

Now the causes of this mixture are the motions that come into them from heat and cold, which proceed from the heavenly bodies.

Thus the elements are disposed (adapted) by those bodies, and then the form is poured in by the Giver of forms.

And when a stronger and fuller mixture than that first one occurs, with the added condition [of due disposition], there results an aptitude for receiving the forms of mineral substances, and thus they receive those forms from their Giver.

But if the mixture is still stronger and more perfect than that, a plant comes forth.

And if it is yet more perfect than that, an animal comes forth.

Now of all mixtures, that mixture is the most perfect by which the seed of man is made, which has aptitude for receiving the human form.

The cause of these dispositions is the motion of the heavenly bodies and of earthly things, and their conjunction.

But the cause of the forms is the separated substance.

Thus the heavenly [bodies] do not cease to confer aptitude, nor the separated substance to confer forms, so that through them the permanence of being may be brought to perfection.

Moreover, these mixtures do not occur by chance, but their causes proceed according to the order which is the celestial motions.

Whence we see among the things that are, that some remain always the same, like the stars, and some cannot always remain the same, like plants and animals.

Wherefore it has been provided that their species should remain.

Of these, some are produced from the earth, when there has been the proper disposition from a celestial cause; and others are produced by birth, and these are more numerous, because in each species there is a certain power separating from it a part similar to itself in potency, which is the cause that there be another like it.

This, then, is the cause of the arising of contingent things.

But the contingent exists only within the concavity of the circle of the Moon.

The celestial bodies, on the other hand, always remain in one and the same way in their essence and in their accidents, except in one that is the vilest of all their accidents, namely position (situs) and illumination.

But because, on account of their diverse motions, there arise among the planets trine aspects, and sextiles, and quadratures, and conjunction, and opposition, and differences of emission of rays, and other kinds of configurations which are called “astronomy,” and which it is not within the power of man to comprehend all therefore those configurations are the cause of the diversity of these mixtures and of these dispositions for receiving forms from their Giver, who is not stingy in giving.

That, however, the forms are not from Him in those subjects in which they are not, happens only by reason of a defect that is in the recipient, not by reason of any prohibition on His part.

Since, therefore, those celestial configurations differ in species, diverse dispositions in species indeed come forth, and diverse forms are poured in, as the form of a horse, and of a man, and of a plant.

For the matter which is receptive of the form of a horse will in no way receive the form of a man, and therefore a mare never gives birth to a man.

But when those celestial configurations vary in strength, being nevertheless one in species, they will bring about various modes of disposition; and then the form of one and the same species is varied according to deficiency and perfection.

For as many animals as are defective in limbs or property, their defect sometimes has arisen from some cause in the maternal womb, or in the time of their nourishment, or in some one of those things that are joined with it.

And this cause will be from another cause, and likewise that from another, and thus into infinity, until one comes at last to the celestial motions.

It follows, therefore, from this that goodness flows into the being that is, from the First Principle, but by the mediation of angels, so that whatever it was possible to have being, might have being according as it could be more beautiful and more perfect.

Whatever, therefore, has being, is as it ought to be, nor could it have been more perfect than it is.

For the matter from which flies are made if it could receive a form more perfect than the form of flies, without doubt that form would be poured into it by its Giver, since there is in Him no stinginess nor withholding, but He overflows by nature, just as light flows from the sun into the air and the earth and the mirror and the water.

Yet it is diversified, so that it does not appear in the air; it appears indeed upon the earth, but the ray is not reflected back in the air; and it appears in the mirror and in water, and there the ray is reflected.

This does not happen because of any diversity arising on the part of the sun, but because of the diversity of the dispositions of the matters.

You must, moreover, know that flies are better than their matter, if that matter were left by itself. Otherwise, the fly would not be found.

But if someone should say: we see the world full of evils, harms, and foulnesses, such as lightning and earthquakes and public storms and the rage of wolves and other things of this sort; likewise in human souls we see pleasure, anger, and the like how then does evil come from the First?

Does it come from the providence of the First, or not?

If it does not come from providence, then there is something outside the power and will of the First. From what, then, will it be?

But if it does come from His providence, then how does He provide for evil, since He is pure goodness, and from whom nothing flows except goodness alone?

It will be said that the secret of providence cannot be unveiled unless first the sense of evil and of goodness be set forth.

For goodness is spoken of in two ways.

In one way, so that it is “good in itself,” whose sense is, namely, that it be something, and so together with that, its perfection.

Hence, if goodness lies in this, then evil lies in its opposite, namely, in the privation of being or the privation of its perfection.

Thus evil has no essence; but being is pure goodness, and true privation of it is evil.

The cause of evil, moreover, is that which causes a thing’s being to be destroyed, or causes some of its perfections to be destroyed.

Evil, therefore, is relative to that which it destroys.

In another way, goodness is understood as that from which the being of all things and their perfection flows.

The First overflow is goodness absolutely in this sense.

According to this consideration, things are divided in four ways.

The first is that which is absolute goodness, from which no evil can be understood to proceed.

The second is pure evil, in which there can be no goodness.

The third is that from which both goodness and evil proceed, but in which evil conquers goodness.

The fourth is that in which goodness conquers evil.

The first division flows from the supremely bountiful First, and these are the angels, for they are the common stock of goodness, from whom there is no evil at all.

The second is that from which there is no goodness, that is, that from which no goodness at all can be understood to be, but is itself pure evil.

The third division is that in which evil surpasses goodness; as far as it is concerned, it is just that it should not even have being, since to bear much evil with very little goodness is evil, and not goodness.

The fourth division must be such as fire, for example, by which there is a great establishment of the world.

For if it had not been created, the order of the world would be changed and many evils in it would be increased.

Created, however, it burns the garment of a poor man, without doubt, if there come to it causes of burning.

Likewise, if rain had not been created, sowing would be destroyed and the world would fail; but created, it necessarily destroys the flat roof of some poor old man’s house when it falls upon it.

Yet it is not possible that rain be created which discerns, in its descent, whether it fall here or there, so that it does not fall upon the flat roof, but upon the cornfields near the roof.

Such an action belongs only to one that lives and chooses; but the form of water, considered in itself alone, does not receive the form of life unless the water be mixed with something else and an animal be made from it, and then the usefulness of water does not proceed from it, just as it does not proceed from those animals.

The Giver of goodness, however, does not concern Himself if, from rain created for the common good, some particular evil follows which indeed sometimes happens, and follows necessarily whereas, from its not being created, a common evil would follow.

For when these things are compared among themselves, it is altogether recognized that it is good that rain be created; and on this account Saturn and Mars and fire and water and pleasure and anger were created, although these sometimes do harm.

For if these were not created, a great good would be destroyed through the privation of them.

Yet they could not be created otherwise than in such a way that a little bit of evil should arise from them; and although the Creator knew that this evil would arise from them, nevertheless He permits it.

Therefore the good is provided in itself, but the evil is provided and permitted accidentally. Both, then, are ordered.

If, however, someone were to say that it would have been fitting that whatever exists should be so created as to be only good, it will be said that the sense of this statement is, namely, that it would have been fitting that nothing be created from which evil might arise.

For that which is only good already exists, and there still remained the possibility that something exist which is not only good, but in which there is much good and little evil; and it is a good thing that that exist, rather than that it not exist.

For if it were not so, then that portion in which there is much good and little evil would not exist.

Therefore the sense of that statement is that it would have been fitting that fire be so created as not to be fire, and that Saturn be so created as not to be Saturn; but this was impossible.

If, however, someone should say, “Why did you say ‘a little evil’?” it will be said that evil is nothing other than destruction and diminution; and these are nothing other than privation of being, or privation of a property of the essence by which the perfection of being is constituted.

But this cannot occur in an angel or in the heaven, as was said above; for this exists only where there is contrariety of forms, as in the elements, in which, on account of their contrariety, without doubt one form deprives another.

Therefore this can occur only on earth.

But although evil occurs universally over the whole earth, nevertheless the earth is very tiny in comparison with all that exists, although goodness is more abundant; and these evils are found only in animals, which are themselves few in the earth, and only in very few of them.

For many of them are free of evil; and those which are not free of it are nevertheless, in the greater part of their dispositions, free of it, and are not harmful to themselves except according to some one disposition and some one property, not according to their essence.

It is now clear, therefore, that evil, in comparison with good, is very rare and very small; and this occurs only in the destruction of the dispositions of essences.

But the fear of the destruction of essence, when it is perceived, is stronger than the fear of the destruction of properties; therefore evil is privation, but the apprehension of privation is pain, whereas good is perfection, whose apprehension is delight.

Now therefore it has been shown how the things that are have proceeded from the First, and how their ordering stands, and in what manner evil has slipped into them, and how it is under providence.

But the revealing of the secret of providence has been forbidden only for this reason: because it makes the common people think [ill] concerning the Power.

Hence it seemed good that it should be said to them that the First is powerful over all things, so that by this the greatness of His power might be imprinted on their hearts.

But if it were distinguished and said: “No, but He is powerful over everything that is possible,” and things were divided into possible and not-possible, and they then were to say that fire has been created in such a form of fire that food is cooked by it and substances are melted by it, but that it should not burn the poor man’s garment when it falls upon it this indeed is not possible then this would be thought to arise from weakness.

Likewise, if it were also said to them that He is not able to create another like Himself, nor to join whiteness and blackness together at once, this too would be thought to arise from weakness.

This, then, is the secret of providence according to what is said; but God knows more than this.

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SECOND PART

FIRST TREATISE

Chapter on Natural Things

We have already said that the things which are, are divided into substance and accident; and accident is divided into that which is understood without relation to another, such as quantity and quality, and into that which is understood with relation, and this is spread over substance and quantity and quality.

Now the science of substance and accident, and of the judgments of being, belongs to the science of divine things.

By dividing further, however, one descends to quantity, which is the subject of the mathematical disciplines, and to that which is bound up with matter in such a way that it cannot be separated from it in thought. And this is the subject of the investigation of natural things, which are concerned with the consideration of the body of the world, in so far as it is subject to change, to motion, and to rest.

Therefore its aim is contained in four treatises:

The first is about that which accompanies (follows upon) all bodies, which is the most common to all the things of which it treats, such as form and hyle (prime matter), and motion, and place.

The second is about that which is less common, namely the investigation of the judgments (properties) of the simple bodies.

The third is about composite and mixed things.

The fourth is the investigation of the vegetative and sensitive soul, and of the human soul; and in this the intention is completed.

The first treatise is about those things which are common to all bodies, which are four, namely form and hyle, without which a body cannot exist (and these we have already treated), and motion and place; and it is necessary now to speak about these.

DISCOURSE ON MOTION

It is necessary to show what motion is, and its divisions. What, however, can be said here more certainly than this, namely that motion is nothing other than movement from place to place only?

But, according to the agreement of the philosophers, “motion” is the expression of a more general notion, namely a change from one form to another form, by its changing into that form by degrees. This is shown as follows.

Whatever is in potency, which can come into act, is divided into that which is changed into act in a single instant as white which becomes black in an instant, and as something dark which is illuminated in an instant, so that the illumination remains fixed in one mode and does not increase and into that which comes into act gradually (or little by little). Therefore, between pure potency and pure act there is for it a process and a gradation in going forth from potency into act.

Now none of those intermediate stages is pure potency, because a stage begins to go out from it; nor is it pure act, because it has not yet arrived at the intended terminus, toward which it still has the aspect of one who is going. Thus the dark is in the morning illuminated little by little, and then the light is not in pure potency, since it has already begun to be, nor is it in pure act, because the proposed terminus of having the light has not yet been attained.

And for this reason, when a body begins to grow black, departing from whiteness, in the meantime, so long as that intermediate state between blackness and whiteness lasts, it is called mobile, that is, capable of gradual change.

Now change of disposition to disposition falls without doubt under the ten categories. But motion falls only under four of them, namely: motion in place, change according to quantity, change of position, and change in quality.

Movement according to place cannot be understood as instantaneous; for place is receptive of division, and the body likewise. It does not depart from its place except with one part after another; certain of the parts precede the others, and motion with respect to place is understood only in this way.

Likewise in generation and corruption there is motion; and also according to position, which is the change from sitting to lying down. Similarly, there is change according to quantity, namely when something is increased or diminished; and it seems that each of the motions according to quantity and according to position is not a species of local motion.

But with respect to quality, motion can occur suddenly as when something becomes black all at once and it can also occur with respect to quality gradually, as when something becomes black little by little.

However, in change according to substance a gradual motion cannot be understood. For water does not become air except suddenly; and seed does not become a human being except suddenly. This is proved as follows.

When seed begins to be transformed, it is necessary that either it remain of the same species that it was, or not. If it remains of the same species, then it has not yet departed from that species to the being of a man, for example. But an “intensification” according to substance cannot be understood, since one man does not have more humanity than another quite the opposite of blackness.

But if it departs from the species which it possessed, then it is departing totally. For substantiality is understood as specificness; to convert a species is to be separated from the species. If the species were to remain in the conversion, then the conversion would take place in an accident, not in the difference and genus, that is, not in the definition and truth of the essence.

Circular motion, moreover, is according to position, not according to place; for it does not leave its place, but revolves in its own place. The outermost heaven indeed has no place, as will be said later, although it is mobile.

With respect to quantity two motions are understood:
one on account of nourishment, which occurs as growth or diminution;
the other without nourishment, which occurs as expansion or constriction.

Growth by nourishment happens when the body that is to be nourished draws from another body near it, by a power through which that (drawn matter) is assimilated to it in actuality, and through it the body increases until the perfection of its growth.

Diminution is when a body is made smaller because of the dissolution of its parts and the lack of nourishment whereby what has been dissolved from it would be restored. Nourishment is necessary only for a body from which something is constantly resolved away: by the surrounding air, which draws off its moisture, and by the natural heat which dissolves it. Nourishment, therefore, restores what is continually dissolved from it.

Expansion is when a body is moved into greater size without anything being added from outside, and by growing in itself, while not receiving anything external, it occupies a space greater than its previous space like water when it is heated, which increases; but if the mouth of the vessel is closed, the vessel is not expanded but broken. Likewise, food in the belly, when it swells and gives off vapor, becomes of greater bulk, and the belly grows by it.

Since it has been proved that hyle (prime matter) does not have measure of itself, but measure is an accident to it, no measure is more proper to it than another, as that of which it is suitably receptive; yet it is not impossible for it to receive a greater or a lesser measure, although not any amount whatsoever nor in any manner whatsoever, but only up to a predetermined limit and from a known cause.

Constriction is motion into diminution, taking up less space without anything being taken away from it, as water which, when frozen, becomes smaller.

Second division of motion, from the point of view of its cause

Motion is divided into motion by accident, and motion by violence, and motion by nature.

Accidental motion is when one body is in another containing body which is moved, and through that (containing body) motion occurs in the contained body, but the place of the body is changed not in its own right. Thus, when a vessel in which there is water has been moved, the water is indeed in its own proper place, namely in the vessel, and is not itself moved; but because the vessel has been moved from one house to another, for this reason the water too has been moved to another house. The proper place of the water is the vessel, not the house. True motion of the water would be if it were taken out of the vessel.

Violent motion is when a body changes its proper place, not by itself but through something external like the motion of an arrow by the bow, or the motion of a thing by that which drags it or pushes it, and like the motion of a stone when it is thrown upwards.

Natural motion is that which belongs to a thing from itself, as the motion of a stone downward, and the motion of fire upward, and the cooling of natural water after it has been heated violently. All this is because when a body is moved it requires a cause; and its cause is either external or internal. If it is external, the motion is called violent; but if it is not external, it is called natural.

Nothing, however, is moved from itself in so far as it is merely a body. For if it were so, then it would always be in motion, and there would be motion for every body always and in the same way. Motion, however, is something over and above the body, and this is called nature.

Nature is divided into that which is not from will as the motion of a stone, and this is properly called nature if it is always one in species; and into that which moves to different parts, and this is called the vegetative soul, as in the motion of trees; and into that which is from will, which either is toward different parts and is called the sensitive soul, or toward one part only, as the motion of the heaven, and this is called the angelic or celestial soul.

If someone asks why the motion of the stone downward and of fire upward is called natural for perhaps, he says, either the air pushes it downward or the earth draws it to itself, since a water-skin full of air rises from under water only because the air draws it, or the water pushes it one will say that this is proved false by the fact that if it were so, then that which is small would be easier to move than that which is great; for what is small is drawn or pushed more easily than what is great.

But here the contrary occurs. Hence we say that the motion is from the thing itself, and by reason of its greatness it moves more swiftly, and is weakened in its motion by its smallness.

Third division

Motion is divided into circular such as the motion of the heaven and straight such as the motion of the elements.

Straight motion is divided into that which is from the middle toward the surrounding, and this is called lightness; and into that which is toward the middle, and this is called heaviness.

Each of these again is divided into that which is ultimate as the motion of fire toward the surrounding (the outer sphere), and the motion of earth toward the center and into that which lies between these, as the motion of air from beneath the water to above the water, and the motion of water from the air down to the surface of the earth.

Therefore, with respect to the consideration of the middle, there are three motions, namely:

the motion around the middle, which is circular;

the motion from the middle; and

the motion toward the middle.

DISCOURSE ON PLACE

The treatise on place is lengthy, but what can be said more briefly about it is this, namely, that in its causal role it has four properties.

The first of these is that a body is moved from one place to another, and that which rests, rests in one of these places.

The second is that in one place two bodies cannot be simultaneously: for vinegar cannot be received into a jug full of water unless the water has first been poured out, nor can water enter unless the air first goes out.

The third is that “up” and “down” exist only in place and not in anything else.

The fourth is that a body is said to be in a place, and through this the error of the one who thought that place is hyle (prime matter) is uncovered, on the grounds that hyle is receptive of one thing after another, just as place is. But this is an error. For hyle is receptive of forms; place, however, is understood to be receptive only of bodies, not of forms.

Some, moreover, have thought that place is a form, because a body is always in its form and not separable from it. But this is also false: for a body is not separated from its form when it is moved from place, nor likewise from hyle. It is separated only from place by motion.

Others have said that the place of a body is the measure of the space that is between the extremities of the containing body. Thus the place of water is the space between the extremities of the concavity of the jug which the water has filled.

But these are divided in this: some of them say that it is impossible to posit this space as void unless it is full; others, who hold the doctrine of the void, say that it is possible for this space to be emptied of the body with which it was filled. And these people asserted beyond the surface of the world an infinite void, and they also posited void outside the world.

We must, however, destroy the opinion of those who say that space is place, and (that space is) the void. For those who hold that place is space if they understand that between the two extremities of the jug there is a space other than the space in which there is water or air then that space is either the place of the water or of the air. But this space is not known, for sense perceives nothing but the space of the body that is in the jug, not some other space mixed with it.

If, however, they say that if one supposes the water to go out in such a way that no air comes in, then there remains a space between the two extremities: this is no valid argument, even though it is true in itself, because it follows from an impossibility. For it is impossible that the water go out in such a way that no air enters. And every truth that follows from an impossibility is not true without that impossibility.

For if you say that if the number five were divided into two equals, it would be an even number this would indeed be true, yet it will not on that account be even. Likewise, if the jug were emptied to a void, there would indeed be space in it, but because the antecedent is impossible, the consequent does not follow from it.

And this is enough to reply to the question, in such a way that what they have said may be understood. The demonstration of the impossibility itself is this:

The space of the body which is between the extremities of the vessel is known. If there is there another space, then that space enters the space of the body; but it is impossible that one space enter another, since it has been proved that one body does not enter another, and this does not happen because they are substances. Now space, in the opinion of those men, exists of itself; therefore it is a substance.

Moreover, it does not enter a body except either because it is cold, or hot, or has some other of its accidents. If this were so, then it might be granted that one (body) enters another if that property were removed. Therefore, there is no reason why it (space) should enter a body except because it has space. But one space does not enter another space; this is to be understood as follows:

Let it be that between the extremities of a vessel for example a square one there is one cubit of air-space, and that which enters is likewise of one cubit of space. If, then, it enters into that without the air going out, it follows that two cubits become one cubit, with two cubit-sized bodies existing there. But it is impossible that two cubits become one cubit. And just as this is impossible in the air-space of one cubit, so it is impossible in all other cases. Therefore one space does not enter another.

But if they wish to understand by the entry of one into the other that one is removed and the other remains, then this is privation. If, however, they understand that both remain, then we return to the claim that two cubits have become one cubit; but this is impossible. For if those two spaces are posited to exist both at once, how will their duality be known?

The argument which destroys the notion that two blacknesses cannot be together in one and the same thing totally, likewise destroys this. For duality cannot be understood except after the distinction of one from another by some accident, as was proved above. If, therefore, two spaces have entered into each other, then one will not be distinguished from the other, and thus it will make no difference whether one says there are two spaces or three or four. This is absurd; nor can those spaces be distinguished by any property, although the disposition of the entry of one into another is either on account of the privation of one, or on account of the permanence of both. But what is privated does not make a distinction between the two.

To destroy, moreover, the second opinion, which maintains a void, what we have said about the entry of one space into another would be enough; yet we shall add some further proofs.

The first of these is that the notion of void did not come into the minds of those men except on account of air which sense does not apprehend. And therefore a man supposes that a vessel in which there is no water is empty and void; and thus the imagination of void has struck root in human opinion. Hence what the authors of the doctrine of the void have conceived is something like air. For according to them it has its own proper measure, and exists of itself, and is divisible.

But we do not understand “body” to be anything else than that in which these properties are found; and by this very reasoning air too has been recognized as a body.

Void, however, is not a pure privation. For they say that it is small and great and hexagonal and square and round, and that two cubits, for example, of this void can be put in the place of two cubits of fullness, but not more; if less, then they will not be equal. Yet pure privation cannot be designated by properties of this sort. And nevertheless it (the void) has being and exists of itself, and is not an accident, and has measure and receives division.

But we do not understand anything else by body except precisely this by the proof that air is a body.

Second proof is that, if there is a void, then a body which is in it neither rests nor moves.
But the consequent is impossible; therefore the antecedent also is impossible.

We have said that for a body to rest in a void is impossible only because resting happens either by nature or by violence. If they suppose that a body rests in some part of the void naturally, this is indeed impossible, since the parts of the void are alike, and there is no diversity between them.

But if they suppose that it rests by violence, still this will not be by violence unless there is for it some other suitable place different from that in which it was; but where there is no diversity, there is no departure for the sake of natural rest; and violence comes after nature.

Furthermore, it is also impossible that there be motion in the void, and this for two proofs. One of them is what we have said: if the motion were natural, then as it were it would be seeking a place different from that in which it was. But, according to them, there is no such diversity there. Likewise also for motion by violence.

The second is that, if there were motion in the void, that motion would be not in time; but this is absurd, therefore that from which it follows is also absurd. The way to destroy what has been said is this, namely, that every motion is in time, because for a body that is moved it is prior for it to be in the first part of the motion than to be in the second.

Now that absurdity has not followed except because a stone moves downward more quickly in air than in water; for air is thinner, and therefore its holding-back and resistance against the stone is less. But if the water were thickened by flour mixed into it, or by something of that sort, then the motion of the stone in it would become slower, because of the greater hindrance and resistance that would arise in it.

The relation, therefore, of the stone to motion in speed and slowness is like the relation of thinness and thickness in holding back and resisting.

If now we suppose the motion of a body to take one hour in a void of a hundred cubits, and then suppose that same body to be moved through an equal space in air or in water, if these exist, then of necessity it will move more slowly there. Let us suppose, then, that it moves there in ten hours. Then, if we posit a fullness of some thing put in place of the water, which is subtler and thinner than the water, to such an extent that its share in hindering that body is a tenth (of that of water), then the body will move in that plenum in one hour; and thus this will produce an equality of motion both in the void and in the plenum, though in the plenum there is hindrance to motion, and in the void there is privation of hindrance.

Since, then, a difference in the quantity of resistance produces a difference in motion, how will it be that the difference between having resistance and its privation does not also produce such a difference? This indeed is a most true proof, similar to that which we gave above on the fact that all bodies agree in having an inclination.

The third (proof) is from natural arguments by which the doctrine of the void is destroyed.

One is this: if an iron vessel is thrown into water, it does not sink in it; and the cause of this is only that air still clings in the concavity of the vessel. Hence, if the vessel wanted to sink, the air would by no means allow it to enter the bounds of the water; for the air seeks to rise to the surface of the water.

Thus, if the air departed from the concavity of the vessel and wished to join its own boundary, and the vessel were to sink, then between the inner surface of the vessel’s concavity and the surface of the separated air there would intervene a void; but this does not happen. For this same reason ships are supported on the water; and if the vessel or the ship were filled with water and the air driven out, at once both would sink.

Similarly it happens with the cupping-vessel: by it the air is drawn out by suction, and together with the air the skin of the person being cupped is drawn, since, if it were not drawn, a void would intervene which does not happen.

Likewise it happens, for this same reason, in that vessel in which water is held, even though the vessel is turned upside down. For if the water were to go out, then nothing would remain inside at the bottom of the vessel from which it might be replaced, and thus it would be emptied into a void. It is therefore impossible that there be a void, and that the surfaces of bodies be separated from one another with nothing intervening.

The same happens when a glass vessel is inserted cleverly into another iron vessel. Then, when the inserted vessel is lifted, the iron vessel into which it is put is also lifted with it. And similar things happen in many other cleverly devised instruments which prove the impossibility of a void.

But if they say: What certainty, then, can be had about place? it will be said that, according to what Aristotle determined and all hold, place is nothing other than the surface of the containing body, that is, the concave surface in which the contained thing is situated, because the four aforementioned marks are found in it.

And in whatever thing those four marks are found, that is place, and is capable of containing another. Now those four marks are found in the concave surface of the containing body; therefore that surface itself is place. They are not found, however, in hyle, nor in form, nor in the other things; therefore those are not place.

Accordingly, the whole world as a whole is not in a place, and therefore one cannot say why this limit rather than a higher or a lower one is appropriate to it, since it is impossible that there be a void, and therefore there is no “above” or “below” beyond it.

So the place of fire is its being encompassed by the concavity of the circle of the moon; and the place of air is the concave surface of the fire; and the place of water is the concave surface of the air. And according to this order one must understand what place is. Therefore, know this.

SECOND TREATISE
Properly on Simple Bodies

It is manifest that body is divided into the simple and the composite.
But the simple is divided into that which does not receive generation or corruption, such as the heavens, and into that which does receive [them], such as the four elements.

It has, moreover, been said above that the heavens do not receive division nor corruption nor straight motion, nor can they be without circular motion, and that they are many, and that their natures are diverse, and that they have souls and understand and are moved by will; but all this has already been said in the treatise on divine things.

Yet we shall add further that their matters, that is, their hylai, are diverse in nature and do not communicate with one another, just as their forms are diverse, not as in the case of the elements, whose matters do communicate. For in the matter of one of them, in so far as it is in itself, it cannot be understood that the form of another could be present; therefore they are diverse matters. But if this could be understood, then the appropriation of these forms in them would be by chance, and would be because something had happened on account of which they came together with them; and it is not possible to posit that they could give way to others and receive other forms, so that, the first having been corrupted, a second might be generated. For from this it would follow that they move with straight motion to the goal of another nature, which is impossible; but what is possible does not entail what is impossible.

It has therefore been shown that their matter cannot be communicating, nor is it similar to the matter of the elements; and this is the judgment concerning the simples of the heavens.

But concerning the elements the doctrine is that they are necessarily divided into the hot and dry, as fire is; and into the hot and moist, as air is; and into the cold and dry, as earth is; and into the cold and moist, as water is. And they hold that heat and cold and dryness and moistness are accidents of the elements and not their forms, and they hold that it can be understood that what is cold becomes hot, as when water is heated, and that some of these pass over into others, and that each of them can receive a greater or lesser measure than that in which it is, and that they themselves receive impressions from the celestial bodies, and that it is necessary that they be in the midst of the celestial bodies: these are the seven theses about the elements.

Now the first thesis is that these bodies, receptive of alteration and of generation and corruption and composition, cannot exist without heat or cold, moistness or dryness. For they are either easy for receiving and admitting form, which is understood to happen through moistness, or they are difficult for receiving form and conjunction, such that some of their parts are joined together among themselves and some remain apart, unconjoined.

And if they are easy to be joined together, it will be called moist, as air and water are. But if they are difficult to be joined when they are applied to one another, it will be called dry, as earth and fire are. Nor can they exist without heat and cold, because they are receptive of mixture, as will be said later; it is necessary therefore that they be mutually acting and being acted upon among themselves. Otherwise there would be mere nearness between them, not interweaving (complexio).

Now the action of bodies takes place either by dividing, which is called heat, or by constricting, which is called cold; and on this account that thing comes to be broken, namely, when the mixture of moistness with dryness has been very strong. And lightness comes to be only through moistness, whereas hardness only through dryness. And natural smoothness comes about through moistness, but natural roughness comes about through dryness. Therefore the roots of natures are these four; then there follow the remaining things, and without these four these bodies cannot exist, but without odor and taste and color they can exist.

For air has no color, nor has fire; nor has air taste; nor do air nor pure water nor stone have smell. Therefore tangible qualities are primary in bodies, preceding those that are visible and odorous and sapid and audible. Therefore among the primary things, namely the elements, there is diversity by these four natures, that is, qualities. And lightness is from heat, and heaviness from cold.

And the more dryness or moistness there is together with heat or cold, by so much the greater will be lightness or heaviness. For what is hot and dry is lighter, and what is cold and dry is heavier. And since it is necessary that there be the addition of two qualities to each of these aforesaid bodies, then there will result four compositions, namely: the hot and dry, at whose extreme there is nothing but fire for it is simply hot and dry; the hot and moist, as air is; the cold and moist, as water is; and the cold and dry, as earth is.

But those things which are compounded after these are inferior to them in these respects. And among composites, that alone is nearer to them in which these natures, that is, the qualities, superabound.

And the reason why air is naturally hot is this: when it is held under water, namely in a flask, it seeks the upper part. And when fire is kindled under water, it steams and becomes ascending. It is true, however, that from the air near our bodies we feel coldness, because vapors of the water near it are mixed with it; and if it were not that the earth is heated by the sun, and through it the air near it is heated, assuredly the air would be colder than it is.

Now the air near the earth is heated up to a certain boundary, and its coldness is diminished, and that which is above it is colder up to a certain boundary. And thereafter it rises to that which is hot, although it is not like fire in heat. Moreover, the dryness and coldness of the earth is manifest, which, if it were left to itself, would always be cold. But if there were no coldness, it would not be a heavy, dense thing seeking the region contrary to the region of fire, according to distance.

Therefore the simple bodies are these four, and they are the mothers from whose mixtures the other bodies come forth.

The second thesis is that these four properties, namely qualities, are accidents of them and are not their forms, as some have thought. For form is a substance, and does not receive more and less, nor stronger and weaker. But these bodies differ in heat and cold; for one water is colder than another.

If therefore coldness were the form of water, then its form would assuredly be destroyed when heat came to it, and it would desire to be raised from its own place to the place of what is hot, and the truth of “wateriness” would not then remain, but would be destroyed once coldness was destroyed.

Likewise, if lightness and upward motion were the form of air, then when air in a flask was under water, it would cease to be air on account of the privation of its form. Therefore these qualities are accidents to them. But the form of an element is a different nature, namely a certain creation coming into matter (hyle), which indeed in itself is not apprehended by the senses.

For the things that are apprehended by the senses, such as heat and cold and moistness, are accidents coming from that nature. But that nature itself is apprehended only through its action, whereby it acts in its body so that it may rest in its natural place and return to it when it has departed from it, and whereby it causes there to be an inclination which is called lightness or heaviness, and causes there to be in every body its own proper quality.

For the nature of water is that coldness appear in it, which is sometimes removed from it by force. But once the force is removed, coldness is immediately called back to the water, just as this nature causes it to have to move downward whenever it is violently thrown upward, when the force overcoming it is removed. Likewise, sometimes the measure (volume) of water becomes greater or smaller through force; and once this is removed, it returns to its natural measure.

Therefore to each of these four there is a form which is its truth and its being, whereas these sensible qualities are accidents.

The third thesis is that these elements receive conversion and change; for it can be granted that water becomes hot, that is, that the form of heat comes to it, and likewise in the other elements. Now heat comes to something for three causes: one from the nearness of a hot body, as fire is, for it heats water; another from motion, as churned milk grows warm through motion, and flowing water is warmer than water at rest. And when a stone is rubbed with a stone, it grows warm and fire is emitted. The third is from light, because when a body is illuminated, it becomes warm, as a burning mirror burns by its light.

Some, however, have spoken against this, saying that neither earth nor water becomes hot, nor air cold, and they devised a way by which they would prove this, saying that when fire is brought near to water, some parts of the fire are separated from the fire and are mixed with the parts of the water, and thus it is hot: [namely] the parts of fire, because the coldness of the water is oppressed by the conquering parts of the fire. Otherwise it would be cold in itself as it was. But when the parts of fire cease to come, the parts of fire are separated from the water, and the manifest coldness returns which had been oppressed, not removed.

As for the milk, they say that it is not heated by motion, but within itself it has hidden parts of fire which motion provokes outward into evidence. Light also, they say, does not make another thing hot, because it is not an accident, but is a hot body in itself, subtle, moving from place to place. And they did not come to this except because they thought these accidents to be forms, and therefore they did not see how coldness might be removed from water while its form remained; and so on that account they came to say this.

Now, however, we have destroyed this root. From now on we shall speak of the destruction of their invention in these three points.

The first division, namely that motion draws out parts of fire from the interior, is destroyed thus: for by this it ought to be that milk is heated outwardly and cooled inwardly, when the fire is moved to the exterior; but it is not so, since a leaden arrow, when it is cast through the air, melts entirely. Hence, if the fire were drawn outward, coldness would be increased within and would remain as it was. Likewise, if it happened that the head of a little auger were broken while it is boring, it would be found hotter inside and outside than it was before. Likewise, if water is moved for a long time in a flask, it will be found warm inside and outside, with similar heat in all its parts. It is clear, therefore, that heat comes to be in all the parts without any motion of it [going out].

But if they say that the parts of fire which were inside, motion made hot, when previously they were not, this is a contradiction in the adjunct, namely that it be fire and not hot, or that it be weak in heat and afterwards increase. But if they say that the leaden arrow melts from the heat of the fire that is in the air, not from the heat which is produced within the lead, and that on this account all its parts are melted, it will be said to them that this is false. For the heat of the air is not greater than the heat of pure fire, in which that which is moved for a long time is more burnt than that which swiftly passes through it. For an agent needs time in order to act. Therefore its stay in the air would be more sufficient to burn it than its swift passage through the air.

But if they say that, when it is moved by the speed of its motion, it draws the fires of the air to itself, which enter into it, and thus, because many fires are joined together in it, it melts, it will be said to them that the parts of the fire that is in the air enter into the lead; whence it must be that the lead becomes colder when the parts of fire have gone out of it. For without doubt fire enters through the pores. And the pores themselves equally allow the exit of the fire and the entrance; moreover it is easier for fire to escape from a foreign place than to come to a foreign place. Hence, if motion prevents the fire from going out, why does it not prevent it from entering?

The second division, namely that the parts of fire enter into water and wood when fire is brought near them, cannot be denied; for mixture can occur by means of some of the causes. But once it has been established from the foregoing that conversion can occur, then it will be more likely that it itself is converted in itself without the entrance of parts of fire into it.

The third division, namely the thesis that light is a hot body, is false in many ways. One [way] is that if light were like the flame of fire, it would have to cover everything upon which it fell, as the flame of fire covers. But it is clear that light makes things manifest, it does not cover them, the opposite of the flame of fire. Secondly, because it would have to move toward one single direction, as fire does; but light is scattered toward many directions. Thirdly, because it would have to arrive more slowly from a more distant place than from a nearer. For when a candle is lit in the darkness, its light comes later to the distant places than to the near. But when a total eclipse is removed from the sun, its light suddenly descends upon the earth without difference.

Fourthly, if a closed house is illuminated by a ray entering through a window, then if the window is suddenly closed, the house ought to remain illuminated by those rays (bodies) which were in it, since they are prevented from going out by the blocking of the window. But if they say that the light has withdrawn from them because of the obstruction of the window, then those [rays] will be a body sometimes receiving light, sometimes darkness, and thus light will be an accident of them; therefore then they are not needed. But here one must know the truth, namely that the earth sometimes receives light, sometimes darkness, because of the approach (or opposition) of the sun and its withdrawal.

Fifthly, that those bodies, namely the rays, if they are dispersed, then how are they joined together in the whole air and in the earth? But if they are joined, not separated, then how do they enter the body of the air? But if they do not enter, then they are dispersed. How then is light continuous over the face of the earth?

Sixthly, that if the luminous bodies were separated from the sun, its parts would be dissolved and its light would be diminished in the second disposition because of the separation of the luminous parts from it. But if they posit that these bodies, namely the rays, are not separated from it, but are in it, not separable from it, because they are moved with it when it is moved, and do not fall upon the earth except when they are opposed to it, then it will necessarily follow that none of these bodies is in the air while it is in the earth, since it cannot be that one body at the same time both approaches and recedes from the earth.

It would therefore be necessary that the air be free of them; for if any of these bodies were to descend into the air, then it would have to be that light did not descend into it, since it is unfitting to say that the light which is upon the earth foreknows the arrival of that body and goes to meet it.

Seventhly, that if light were a body, it would be reflected from a hard thing, as from a stone, and not from a soft, as water is. It is therefore clear from these arguments (signs) that a ray is an accident in this sense, namely that the sun is the cause that this accident comes to be in the thing that is opposite, when there is a body between them. And that illuminated body is also the cause of the coming of the light into that which is opposed to it, by reason of reflection or rebound. But when something receives light, it also receives heat. Heat therefore comes to it, which is another accident.

The fourth thesis is that these four elements are converted into one another among themselves. For water is converted into air and earth; air indeed into air and fire; and similarly the rest, although some have denied this.

The proof of this is ready to hand. For in the smith’s blast-furnace, if one blows into it long and strongly, the air that is in it is heated and becomes fire and burns; for fire is nothing but burning air. If we also place a glass vessel in the midst of snow, in such a way that no snow enters into it, the air which is in the vessel is cooled and is converted into water, and the drops are gathered together upon its surface, and when there are many they are collected at the bottom. But this does not happen by water entering into it through the pores, for the external water is not diminished.

For if in place of snow hot water were put, it would be more apt to penetrate, yet it does not penetrate in any way. But if this took place because of the entrance of water, then it would occur only in that part which the snow occupies; yet drops appear on the highest extremity of the vessel, which rises above the snow. This also is seen in the coldest lands, that the cold conquers the clear air near the earth in fair weather and converts it into snow, and it falls to the earth, so that much of it is gathered together without clouds.

But the conversion of water into air is manifest when fire is kindled beneath it, because then the vapor ascending from it becomes air. And the conversion of water into earth we have often seen already, namely when clear drops of water from rain fall into some places in which there is a hardening and freezing power, and they are frozen into stone. And the conversion of stone into water through dissolution we can apprehend from the art of alchemy, by which stones are dissolved into water.

But the cause of all this is that prime matter is common to all these things, which indeed is not converted into any of these forms, but receives a form according to the cause of that to which it meets. And when the cause is changed, the form is also changed; nor does a disposition to receive another form come about except by reason of the concurrence of accidents which are suited to that form, as when heat has the mastery over water by heat, it becomes more apt to receive an airy form, and the heat does not cease to increase, while meanwhile the watery form remains, until its power is perfected so that the water becomes more apt for the airy form. And thus the watery form is stripped away and the airy form is infused into it by the giver of forms.


The fifth thesis is that the elements receive a greater and a lesser measure without anything being added from outside, since water sometimes increases, sometimes decreases. For when water is heated, it increases.

Now it has already been said that measure is an accident of prime matter (hyle), from which it follows that prime matter is not always fixed in a single measure; and we shall now show this in a way perceptible to the senses.

For wine swells in a flagon to such an extent that it breaks it; and a bronze pot full of water and closed, if fire is kindled beneath it, is broken. The cause of this is nothing other than that the water has become greater than it was.

But if they should say that the water has increased through the parts of fire which have entered into it, it will be said: how did the parts of fire enter into it, when none of the water has flowed out of it? And even if some water had gone out and parts of fire had entered in place of the water, still it would remain as it was and would not be broken.

But if they say that the fire which was in the water naturally seeks its own region above, and therefore breaks [the vessel], it will be said that then it ought to make the vessel be lifted upward, not broken; for perhaps it is easier for the vessel to be lifted upward than to be broken, since the vessel is very strong and light to overturn. And it would also be necessary that it always break the place which it touches; but this does not happen. The cause of this is that the water spreads out into all directions and strikes the surface of the vessel on every side; so in whichever part the place is weaker, there it will burst.

Measure, therefore, is an accident which increases and decreases, but the nature appropriate to that measure is not removed; rather, it brings it about that a proper accident is acquired, so long as there is no violence. But if it encounters violence, its action will perhaps be weakened until the violence is removed.

The sixth thesis is that these lower things receive impressions from the heavenly bodies. And among all the planets the impressions of the sun and the moon are the most evident; for through these occur the ripening of fruits and the ebb and flow of the seas. For through the waxing of the moon there comes the tidal flow and the increase of the inner pulp of fruits, and many other things which are known in detail by each [observer]. From their impressions upon lower things there arise light and heating, by means of light.

But although heat comes from the sun by means of light, it does not follow that it itself is hot; just as, when it heats water and moves the heated water upwards, by this it is not signified that it itself is moved upwards, so its heat does not signify that it itself is hot.

For the heavenly bodies are of a fifth nature, alien to these natures, as was said above. And among these accidents, some are desiring one another, and some are mutually repugnant and abhorring one another; for heat is linked with motion, and light is linked with heat, because one of them prepares the aptitude for there to be something that receives from the giver of forms.

Hence it does not necessarily follow that the action of a thing is of the same genus as that thing. Very often it happens that what comes to be in a body is of another genus, according as it is fitting to the agent: for heating is from fire, and coldness from water, and light from the sun.

Now the action of a body upon a body sometimes takes place through nearness, as when one cold thing chills another by touching it, and the wind moves another body by touching it; sometimes it takes place through opposition, as when a green thing is set opposite a white wall in a place where the sun shines, it makes greenness come upon the wall by rebound; and as a form, when it is set opposite a mirror, makes another similar form be produced in it. This would not happen if they came into contact with one another. Likewise, when a colored body is placed opposite the eye, it causes a similar form to come into the eye, even though it is at a distance and does not touch it.

The truth of this is not that something from the colored body is extended to another, nor that the form goes out from the form to the eye or to the mirror; for this would be unfitting. Rather, that which is luminous and is opposed to a dense body is the cause that a similar form comes to be in it, by a kind of stripping-away, when something transparent is interposed. And when light has come into it, through this cause it is disposed to heat and becomes hot, and then through the heat it is sometimes made apt for motion. And if this [body] is water, it will rise as vapor.

A burning mirror, moreover, does not burn except because it is concave and shaped like a pyramid, in which the point that is, as it were, the center receives the light from all parts of the mirror by reflection and rebound into it. The more that light there is at that point, the greater becomes its disposition to heat. Thus its heat is increased and it burns on account of this.

And heat dominates in summer for this reason: that the light of the sun, shining upon us, becomes stronger because of the perfection of its facing (opposition), which would not occur except by such facing; for the more directly opposed it is, the more light there will be, and perfect opposition exists only when it is perpendicular. Now in summer the sun is in the northern region, near our zenith. And for this reason the summer day is brighter than the winter day, and for this reason, without doubt, it is hotter.

In winter, however, the perpendicular is inclined away from us because the sun is inclined from us toward the south. Hence, because the light is weakened, the heat also is weakened. By “perpendicular” is understood a line going out from the center of the sun to the earth, forming on each side two equal angles, that is, right angles. When therefore it deviates from this, the angles are altered and it is no longer perpendicular.

The seventh thesis is that these elements must be within the heavens, and they cannot be understood to exist outside them, nor can they be understood to have two natural places within them, since it is necessary that there be one place for each of the elements within them.

And for this reason the elements cannot be outside the heavens: because the elements are bodies seeking two different regions, as was said above, in that they receive straight motion; and this cannot be understood to occur except insofar as they are surrounded by a body which bounds their parts. Hence, to posit any one of them beyond the outermost surface of the world, and not surrounded by a body, is impossible.

To posit also another heaven so that two worlds might be posited, whether near or far, is likewise impossible, because there would then be between them a space which is a void (inhanitas). But that a void exist is impossible; and because, if that space had two parts, straight motion between them would be conceived, there would then be need of something which makes it necessary that there be diversity of parts. Now we have already shown that body does not of itself require that there be a part outside; therefore they would need a third body which would surround and encompass them, which also is impossible namely, that there should be two earths in two places, both enclosed by one surrounding body, just as the body of the moon and all the bodies of the elements are within the circle of the moon. A situation of this sort is impossible.

And for this reason we say that the place of each simple element must be one. For if we were to assign to it two places, and, for example, were to place water between the two places which we have assigned to it and leave it there, it could not be but that either it would incline naturally to one of them and thus that place would be natural to it and not the other or that some part of it would incline to one and another part to the other, which is impossible.

For water is simple and uniform, and the motion of each of its parts must be similar, because there is nothing that would appropriate some part of it so as to make a separation occur among them.

Therefore the natural place of a body is the place to which, if we were to put bodies of the same kind in different places and leave them to their own nature, they would all move and come together. The place, then, of the whole is the place to which all the parts of the whole gather. Otherwise they would lead us into the absurdity that we have already mentioned.

It follows, therefore, from this that the world is one, nor is it possible for it to be otherwise; and that its bodies are divided into that which seeks a region and that which gives a region. And that which seeks a region must be in the midst of that which gives the region, in order that the two regions may be distinguished by nearness and distance. And it is necessary that the receiver be within the giver of the region, because it cannot be outside it.

But this whole [argument] rests on these principles, namely that these bodies are simple. Now every simple body has a natural shape, namely spherical, and one natural place. And it is manifest that the void does not exist; therefore from the collection of all these points the conclusion we have stated follows.

And we said that every body has a natural place for this reason: because if it is let go without violence, it will either come to rest and then the place in which it rests is called its natural place or it will be in motion, and it will have its orientation only toward that region in which, without doubt, its natural place lies.

And we said that its place must be one, lest there follow the absurdity which we have mentioned, namely that, when a simple body is left between two limits, some of its parts go off toward one limit and others toward the other. For if it has the orientation of going toward one, the other being disregarded, then assuredly the place toward which it turns its “face” is natural to it.

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THIRD TREATISE
On Complexion and on Composites

It is necessary here to set out five speculations.

The first of these is to know what complexion is, about which we intend the following: namely, that these elements are mixed together in such a way that they act upon one another and suffer [being acted upon] among themselves, and that one alters the quality of the other until, in the whole that results from the things mixed, there rests one similar quality; and this is called complexion.

That is to say, that the hot diminishes the coldness of the cold, and the cold [diminishes] the heat of the hot, and likewise the moist [diminishes] the dry, until the sensible qualities, which we showed to be accidents of the forms, become similar because of their diminution arising from the action of the one on the other; but the forms, that is, the powers which make it necessary that these qualities exist, remain, those qualities remaining, and receive the mutual action of the one upon the other.

For if those four forms were destroyed, this would indeed be corruption, not complexion. For if, for example, the form of fire were destroyed and the form of air remained, then this would be a change of fire into air, not a complexion. But if the qualities were not being altered by successive continuous impressions, then they would be merely adjacent, not complexioned.

Where Aristotle said that the powers of the elements always remain in complexions, he meant by this only the active powers, since for the power of suffering to remain would signify corruption; and thus by this he indicated that complexion is not corruption.

For how could they be corrupted? If they were equal in acting and suffering, then one would not corrupt the other. But if one overcame the other, the victor would remain and the vanquished would be destroyed and converted into the victor; and altogether there is no middle term between substances, but forms are substances which do not receive increase or diminution. It follows therefore from this that you should hold the truth about complexion to be as we have said.

Now complexion, in thought, is divided into equal and unequal. An equal [complexion] is impossible. For if it existed, then the body of that complexion would neither rest nor move. For if it rested on the earth, then earth would be prevailing; similarly if it rested in air. But if it were moved from air toward fire, then fire would be prevailing; if, however, it were moved toward earth, then earth would be the victor. And if it rested in air, then air would be prevailing.

It would therefore follow for such a body that it neither rested in any place nor moved toward any place something impossible.

The second speculation is about the first commixture which is among the elements, about whose properties and simplicities there is disagreement. You should know that earth has three tunics [layers]. One tunic is the lower, which is around the center, and this is closer to simplicity, and this is pure earth. Above this is that to which the waters flow together, which is like mud. Above this is the third, which is the face of the earth, which is divided into that which is covered by the sea and that which is bare.

Over that which is beneath the sea, water is dominant; and over that which is bare, dryness is dominant on account of the heat of the sun.

As to the fact that water is not mixed with earth, the reason is this: namely, that earth is wont to be converted into water, and there without doubt a marsh comes to be; and water is converted into earth, and on that account a mound comes to be there. But earth is hard, not passable like water or air, such that some of its parts move into others and it repels curvature from itself and is formed spherical, like water and air. And because water flows down from the higher parts of the earth to the lower, for this reason some places are laid bare to the air.

And this indeed had to happen because of divine providence; for noble composite animals had need to be nourished by the air for the preservation (continuance) of their spirit. And it was necessary that earthiness should be dominant in them so that the things wisely made might subsist. Therefore it was necessary that the earth be laid bare to the air in some places, so that the being of noble animals might be perfected.

Air too has four tunics. One is that which is continuous with the earth, in which there is wateryness from the vapors that are raised up to it from the nearness of waters where there is in some places heat; for the earth receives the brightness of the sun and is heated, from which heat arises in the air near it.

Above this tunic is another which is not free from vaporous moisture, and it is less hot, for the heat of the earth does not reach up to it because of its distance. Above this again is another tunic, which is pure air, because neither vapor nor heat can reach to it. But above this there is a tunic in which there is smokiness; for the smoky exhalations of the earth are raised up into the air and strive to ascend to the empyrean heaven, that is, the fiery [heaven].

They are therefore in the upper tunic of the air as it were waiting until they ascend and are set on fire.

Fire, however, is nothing but a single ignited tunic, and it has no light, just as air does not, but it is more subtle than air. For if it had color, it would prevent the stars from being seen at night and would make light upon the earth, like fires kindled on the earth.

Now the color of a candle and its light come to be only from the mixture of clear fire with dark smoke, and from these being joined color and light arise. Otherwise, pure fire has no color; for where fire is stronger in a candle, there it hardly has color, so that it appears like an empty window, in which there is nothing but emptiness and air. And the true fire is only that which is there.

Nor has it heat except from its mixture with smoke. Fire therefore is like air, which has in itself neither light nor color, but is passable, and is air made fiery.

The third speculation is about the things that come to be in this space as far as the fire, concerning the matter of vapor. It is not hidden that, when the sun heats the earth by means of light, it makes vapor rise from the moist and smoke from the dry; and this is evident. But from that of them which is retained in the hidden places of the earth, ores are generated; and from that which overflows from them and climbs up into the air, certain things are generated which must be mentioned.

For the things that are generated from the matter of vapor are clouds, and rain, and snow, and hail, and the rainbow, and the ring which appears around the moon, and other things of this sort. For when vapor is raised from the warm tunic of the air to the cold [tunic], it becomes heavier and thicker because of the cold and is frozen there and becomes a cloud.

For cold more quickly imprints thickness upon vapor in the air than upon cold [vapor] in the earth; and this happens because the vapor has been made more subtle by heat. Do you not see that, when air enters a very hot bath-house, the air there is darkened and the vapor thickens like a cloud?

And for this reason also, in the evening hour we put water in the sun so that it may be made subtle by the heat of the sun when we wish it to be cooled at night by the north wind. Likewise, if in winter hot water and cold are thrown upon the earth, the hot freezes more quickly than the cold. This is also evident when someone washes his face with hot water in winter, for immediately his hair freezes a thing which would not happen if the water were cold.

Now these vapors are not raised from the hidden places of the earth except because of what has been poured into them from the heat of the sun; which, having gone out from the pores of the earth, are expanded and dispersed, except for that which is retained from them beneath hard mountains, which prevents them from being dispersed, because thus the mountains are to the vapors as an alembic, which retains the vapor. And when they have been held in them, they become the matter of minerals.

But when they are stronger and find little cracks in the mountains through which they may escape, then a great part of the vapors will be raised upward and then will be diversified. For if it is weak, the heat of the sun quickly disperses it and converts it into air; and for this reason vapors rarely become dense or gathered together in summer, but in winter they are made dense (gathered together) at night more frequently.

If, however, it is strong or the heat of the sun is weak, or both are conjoined, then the sun will not act upon it and it will be joined together; and sometimes the wind helps in the joining, because it drives one [part] toward another, so that they meet. And when they come to the cold tunic, they are thickened and become water and drip down, and this is called rain, like the vapor which, raised from a cauldron, reaches the lid of the cauldron. And because there is some coldness there, the vapor is frozen into drops.

But if great cold befalls it before it is joined and made into drops, it is frozen and becomes like scattered pieces of wool, which are raised up when wool is torn apart with a bow, and then they descend like little clumps of cotton, and this is called snow.

But if cold does not befall it when it has been joined so as to drip, but heat comes upon it from every side, its coldness will be overcome and will retreat into the interior of the drops, and the drops will be frozen and hail will be formed. And for this reason hail happens only in autumn and spring, because the cold is gathered together in its interior parts, because of the heat surrounding its exterior.

But if the air has been made moist by rain and its moisture has gained a certain brightness, the air will become like a mirror; and whoever looks at it when the sun is behind his back will see the sun in that air just as he sees the sun in a mirror. But if that light is joined with moist vapor, from it is generated the three-colored rainbow, in which sometimes there will not be the middle color, and then it will be circular, so that the distance of its parts from the sun is one and the same.

For a mirror does not make the form to be seen except when there is a proper position (or relation) between the viewer and the thing seen, of which the science of perspectives treats.

Now the circle is not completed for this reason: that, if it were completed, one part of it would fall under the earth, because the sun is behind the back of the observer, as though the axis were directed toward that circle, and the sun is a little raised above the earth. Hence, if it is before midday, the rainbow will be seen in the west; but if it is after midday, it will be seen in the east.

And if the sun is in the middle of the sky, then only a small arc can be seen, if it happens, and the ring surrounding the moon also comes to be from a cause of this sort.

For the air which is between the sight and the moon is shining and moist; hence the moon is seen in the midst of it. In this medium, if there were a mirror, the moon would be seen, or that which is seen in a mirror, from the same place. But if there were many mirrors around the line of sight, and they were placed according to that disposition, the thing would be seen in each one of the mirrors. And if the mirrors were placed one above another, then the thing would be seen in the whole; then therefore a circle would be seen without doubt.

But its middle does not appear dark except because the vapor that is in the middle is subtle, which, when it approaches the luminous [body], ceases and becomes of such a sort that it is not seen. But when it is far from it, it becomes visible, nor is it like dust that is seen in a ray of the sun, nor in shadow, but it is like the stars which are hidden in the day and appear at night; and for this reason the middle of the circle is seen as though it were empty of cloud.

This circle, however, sometimes occurs solely from the coldness of the air, although there is no rain there, because, on account of coldness in the air, some moisture occurs in which there is neither dust nor smoke that would hinder the brightness of that moisture.

Fourth speculation is about the things that come to be from the matter of smoke, namely wind, lightning, the stars that seem to fall, the tailed stars, thunder, and coruscation (lightning-flash).

For when smokes are raised up, they are raised within the vapor and are more inclined toward the upper region, and they have a stronger motion than the vapor. But if coldness strikes it while it is being raised, it becomes heavier and turns back and thrusts the air quickly and moves it very strongly, and wind comes to be. For wind is air that is moved.

But if coldness does not strike it, it will be raised up to the empyrean and will be set on fire by the fire, and from this the fire that is seen comes to be, which sometimes appears long according as the smoke is long, and this is called a falling star. Then, if the smoke is subtle, either it will be converted into pure fire and be extinguished and will not be seen, because it is effaced for, because it is converted into pure fire, the fire makes it not be seen, and then it is fire most pure or it will be extinguished and converted into air and will become small.

For if coldness, which acts in extinguishing, meets it, it will be converted into air. But if the fire prevails, it will purge the smoke of its darkness, and the smoke will be wholly converted into fire. And it cannot be but that one of these two happens there, namely either it is set on fire and becomes pure fire, because coldness is not there; but if the smoke is thick, it will indeed be set on fire, but because it is not of such a sort as to be quickly converted, it will remain so for some time and a tailed star will be seen, which sometimes revolves with the heaven, because the parts of the fire are continually with the parts of the concavity of the heaven. And for this reason it revolves through sharing in its companionship. Whence also the smoke which is there at its boundary revolves.

Or it will not be set on fire, but will become like charcoal in which the flame that was in it has been extinguished, and it will appear reddish, and from this red signs arise in the air. But if there is some smoke from which the redness has been taken away, it becomes like charcoal in which the fire is utterly extinguished, and then it appears as though there were dark little holes in the air.

Then, if some smoke remains within the clouds and is chilled, wind will then come to be within the clouds and will be moved strongly within them, and from this there arises the sound which is called thunder. But if its motion and agitation is stronger, it will be set on fire by the heat of the motion of the air and of the smoke, and there will come to be a most shining fire which is called coruscation.

But if that which is set on fire is thick and heavy, when ignited it will be driven toward the earth by the clash of the clouds, and it is called fulgur (lightning); and lightning is a subtle fire which penetrates grasses and soft things, but when it strikes various things such as iron and gold, it dissolves them, so that it melts the gold in a purse and does not burn the purse, and it melts the gold in ships and does not burn the men.

Now coruscation cannot exist without thunder, for both are from motion; but because sight is keener, therefore the coruscation is seen and sometimes the sound does not reach the hearing. The coruscation is seen before the thunder is heard. For sight apprehends without time, but hearing does not apprehend unless all the intervening air has been moved and its action has been impressed upon the hearing. And for this reason, when someone sees in the distance a washerwoman beating cloths with a stick, he hears the sound of the blow a little after he has seen the motion of the blow.

Fifth speculation is about minerals, which are generated only from the vapor and smoke that are held enclosed within the earth; and when these are joined and mixed together, by reason of their diverse mixture they are made apt to receive diverse forms which are poured into them by the giver of forms.

But if the smoke prevails in the mixture, then that which results will be something like sal ammoniac or like sulfur; but if the vapor is stronger, it will become like clear water frozen hard, and from this will be made precious stones and alabasters (or rock crystals) and other things of this sort.

These are hard to dissolve by fire or to extend under the hammer; for extension and dissolution or liquefaction take place through a sticky, living moisture which is called unctuosity, but whatever moisture there was in these has already been frozen and hardened.

But that which is dissolved (melts) and extended, like bronze and lead and silver and gold, is that in which there is a wise mixture of smoke and vapor, and in whose substance the drying heat has been reduced, and in which a living unctuous moisture remains. This comes about through a strong impression of its heat upon its moisture, to such an extent that its coldness is diminished (broken) and wateryness is mixed with it; and thus there remains in it a little earthiness with airiness, and this is what is dissolved (or melted) by fire.

And that which is of sulphurousness in it enlivens the fire in dissolving (melting), and then it makes its moisture melt and strives to ascend; but the earthiness that clings to it draws it back, and thus from this, that it wishes to ascend, and from this, that it is drawn back, a circular motion arises, and its parts are not scattered, because its mixture has been made wisely.

But if the mixture is weak, the vapor will be lifted up and separated from the heavy thing that draws downward. And when the fire has prevailed, it will be diminished because of the separation of the vapor from it and will become like slag, as happens with lead.

And the farther unctuosity is from congelation, the more receptive it will be of extension under the hammer. But that which has been too much frozen and does not endure to melt, nonetheless, if sulfur and orpiment are thrown upon it and are mixed with it and roasted, will become easy to melt, like filings of iron and like marcasite and atale.

For whatever coldness freezes, heat dissolves, as wax; and what heat hardens, coldness dissolves, as salt, which is hardened by heat sharing with it the dryness of earth. For heat enlivens dryness and moisture and increases both.

Now in whatever [body] wateryness prevails, that is frozen by cold; and in whatever earthiness prevails, that is frozen by heat. But in whatever earthiness and moisture are together, since earth has a greater affinity with heat, that [body] is frozen by cold and is more difficult to melt, like iron.

But to distinguish all these things a more extended discourse is necessary, and from this the art of alchemy has been derived, and many other things besides it.

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FOURTH TREATISE
On the Vegetative, Animal, and Human Soul

Discourse on the Vegetative Soul

Just as the mixture of smoke and vapor brings it about that there is a readiness (aptitude) for receiving the forms of metals, so there befalls the elements a mixture more perfect than that, and more beautiful, and nearer to equality and further removed from the contrariety of the mixed qualities.

Whence they are disposed to receive other forms, more noble than the forms of things that are frozen/solidified, in such a way that it happens to them to be vegetated (to live as plants) which does not occur in things that are frozen and this form is called the vegetative soul, which is in the tree and in plants.

Now this soul has three actions:

one is to nourish, through the nutritive power;

the second is to increase, through the augmentative power;

the third is to generate, through the generative power.

Food, moreover, is a body which is assimilable to the body to be nourished in potency, not in act. When it is drawn into the body that is to be nourished, then the nutritive power acts upon it.

The nutritive power is the power that converts the food by stripping it of its own form and clothing it with the form of the body to be nourished, and it is diffused through all its parts to which it adheres, and restores what has been dissolved from its parts.

Growth, however, is the increase of the body, by nourishment, in its dimensions, according as is fitting for the body that is growing, until it comes to the perfection of its increase, with the difference appropriate to it in the parts of the growing body, which are depressed and raised and bent/turned and lengthened. The power of this action is called the augmentative.

These powers are not apprehended by sense, but are signified from their actions. For every action needs an agent, and a name is attributed to it derived from its action.

The generative power is that which separates a part from the body, similar to it in potency, and disposes it to receive a form similar to it as the seed (sperma) of an animal, and the seed of grains.

The nutritive power does not cease until the end of life, but it is weakened in the end, because it is not able to restore what is dissolved, since it is weak for converting the body of the nourishment.

The augmentative power, however, acts up to the time of youth and the perfection of growth, and then ceases. But when the augmentative has ceased as regards increase in measure (quantity), not as regards time, then the generative power is stirred up and strengthened.

Discourse on the Animal Soul

If, however, there comes to be a complexion nearer to equality and more beautiful than that which has been mentioned, it is made fit to receive the animal soul, which is more perfect than the vegetative, because the vegetative powers are in it and, in addition, two other powers, one apprehending and the other moving.

For an animal is understood to be that which apprehends and is moved by will. And these are two powers of one soul, proceeding from a single root, and therefore their actions are linked together. For when there has been apprehension, straightway desire follows, and from it motion is produced, either toward acquiring or toward fleeing.

The moving power needs will, and there is no will except from desire and appetite. And appetite is either toward acquiring that which we need in order to obtain what is suitable, by which the individual is preserved (as food), or by which the species is preserved (as intercourse); and this appetite is called the desiderative power. Or it is [an appetite] toward fleeing or repelling, which we need in order to repel what is contrary to that which preserves [us], and this is called the irascible [power].

Fear is understood to be a weakness of the irascible power; abhorrence, on the other hand, is understood to be a weakness of the desiderative power. And these [two appetites] move the motive power, which is spread through the muscles and nerves, according to command and obedience, in order to bring about motion.

For the power that is in the muscles is that which represents (exhibits) motion, because this is what is ordered to move. But the appetitive power leads to this and gives the command.

The apprehensive power, moreover, is divided into an outer one, such as sense, and an inner one, such as imagination, estimation, memory, and cogitation; about whose exact character we shall speak later.

For if brute animals did not have an inner power besides the senses, then when it happened that some food harmed it and it immediately abhorred it, afterwards it would not again abhor eating it unless it first tasted it. At first it eats because it did not know it was harmful; and if the harm of it had not remained in its memory, it would not know it to be harmful when it saw it again.

But that memory comes after seeing, and smelling, and the other senses. And unless it were the case that these five senses refer whatever they apprehend of forms to one other power which collects them all, and which is called the common sense, it would happen that, when a man saw something liquid and yellow, namely honey, he would not apprehend that it is sweet unless he tasted it again. For the eye does not apprehend sweetness, nor does taste apprehend color; therefore it is necessary that there be something one in which these two, namely color and sweetness, are joined together, so that it may be judged that the yellow thing is sweet.

But this judgment is not that of the eye alone, nor of taste alone. And if there were no inner power, it would happen that a sheep would not apprehend the hostility of a wolf never before seen, so as to flee from it; for hostility is not seen.

This is the sum of the collection of powers which it is now necessary to distinguish.

DISCOURSE ON THE CERTAINTY OF THE EXTERNAL APPREHENSIONS

The sense of touch is evident: it is a power spread through all the skin and flesh, by which are apprehended heat and cold, moisture and dryness, hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, heaviness and lightness.

And this power reaches to the parts of the flesh and skin by means of a subtle body which is its vehicle, which is called spiritus (spirit), and it runs through the joints of the nerves, by whose mediation it reaches the parts of the flesh and skin.

And this subtle body does not acquire nor inflame this power except from the heart and the brain, as will be said later.

And unless the quality of the skin is converted into something similar to what is apprehended, namely into coldness or heat or into the other [tangible qualities], it will not become apprehending; and therefore it apprehends only that which is hotter than itself, or colder than itself. But that which is equal [in quality] to it does not act upon the one touching.

Smell comes about through a power which is in the two little fleshy parts of the brain that are like the tips of teats; this power apprehends by means of a body which is affected by odours and retains them, or the parts of odorous things are mixed with that body, as happens with air and water.

But it does not follow that the parts of odorous things themselves are mixed with the air. It is very likely that the air is transformed and receives the form of the odour and is disposed to receive it from the giver of forms because of its conjunction (nearness) with it, not that the odour itself is moved; for this is impossible for an accident.

And if this did not happen except by the mingling of the parts of odorous things, then the odour would not be diffused for many leagues. For the Greeks have already said that a certain bird, because of the smell from the corpses of the slain in a certain battle, came from a place two hundred leagues distant to the place of the battle; in the region surrounding that place, within two hundred leagues, that bird was not normally found. And this happened because of the strength of the senses of birds and the passion (modification) of the air. Otherwise it could not be understood that the vapor rising from the corpses could be diffused as far as that limit.

Hearing comes about through sound. And sound is something that comes to be in the air because of a wave-motion happening in the air from a very strong movement arising from the violent striking together or separating of certain things.

It happens from a blow when two bodies rush strongly together and the air which was between them is violently driven out. And it happens from separation when the air is violently moved between two bodies that are being pulled apart. And sound is produced when the agitated air reaches as far as the motion of the disturbance extends; and when that motion reaches the air lying still inside the hollow of the ear, that air, joined to the nerve stretched in the depth of the hollow (just as a piece of skin is stretched on a drum) is impressed, and a ringing is produced there, and the power assigned to that nerve apprehends it.

Now the motion in the air is like a small circular wave, and it does not cease to spread and then weaken until it altogether fails, and so too does the air. And as in a basin full of water, when a stone is thrown into the middle, a ring spreads out as far as the edges of the basin, and then, struck back from them, returns to the middle so also the wave-motion of the air, when it strikes a hard body, is sometimes reflected, and from that comes an echo; and because of the repeated striking, the sound in a basin or a bath-house lasts a long time.

Taste comes about by a power assigned to the nerve spread out on the outer surface of the tongue, by means of a gentle moisture which has no flavour of its own and is spread over the surface of the tongue. This moisture apprehends the flavour of the sapid object and is converted into it, and is joined to that nerve, and thus the nerve apprehends it through the power which is in it.

Vision, moreover, is interpreted as the apprehension of the form of what is seen, that is, the impressing of a form similar to the seen thing in the crystalline humour of the eye, which is like hail or ice. For this humour is as it were a mirror, in which, when something coloured meets it, a form similar to that coloured thing is imprinted, just as the form of a man is imprinted in a mirror, when there is between them a small illuminated body as a medium.

It is not that something goes out from the coloured thing and stretches to the eye, nor that a ray goes out from the eye and stretches to the opposite form; for both of these are impossible in vision and in a mirror. Rather, a form similar to the coloured thing comes to be in the mirror and in the eye of the viewer when the eye is suitably disposed, through proper opposition, so that the form may come into it by means of the transparent medium.

And the acquiring of the form in the eye comes from the giver of forms; and every apprehension is nothing but the apprehension of a form similar to the thing apprehended.

When, then, the form is imprinted in the crystalline humour, that humour offers it to the visual power, placed at the meeting-point of two hollow nerves which are in the fore-part of the brain, and the soul apprehends it. Hence, if a mirror had spirit, it would apprehend the forms which arise in it.

The cause why distance makes a thing appear small is this: the crystalline humour is spherical, and a sphere is not opposed to anything except according to its centre. For if we set a round surface, for instance like a shield, opposite the spherical [surface] of the mirror of the eye, it will be opposed to the eye in such a way that it is opposite according to straight lines enclosing the shield, whose lower part spreads out and whose upper part narrows, that is, the part next to the eye; and when they reach the crystalline humour, a small circle is formed in the eye.

This opposition, therefore, is in the shape of a round pyramid whose apex is the centre of the eye and whose base is the shield. And the more the shield is moved away, the longer the pyramid becomes and the narrower the angle which is at the centre of the eye, and the small circle which is on the surface of the crystalline humour becomes smaller; and the smaller it becomes, the smaller the seen thing appears, so that by little-by-little diminishing it will come to such smallness that the visual power will not apprehend it. And thus the seen thing will withdraw from being grasped, or from comprehension.

This proof is geometrical and is found in the book on optics, which we have not cared to set down here. What we have said can point to it. And this is Aristotle’s doctrine about this, namely how apprehension takes place.

Those, however, who preceded him said that it is necessary that there be a continuity between sense and sensed thing in order that sensing occur; and they said that, since it is unfitting that a form should go out from the thing seen and extend to the eye, it is necessary that a subtle body be separated from the eye, which is the ray, and that it be continuous with the thing seen; and by this medium vision comes about. But this is indeed unfitting.

For how will the eye be expanded so as to emit so many bodies that they are scattered over half the world, that is, over half the sphere of the heavens? And because some physicians saw that this was absurd, they devised another way, saying that in the air that is continuous with the eye, an impression is made because of the going out of a small ray from the eye; and because the ray and the air are bound together, both become as it were one thing, quicker than in the twinkling of an eye, and thus, being joined, they become one instrument of seeing.

But this too is shown in many ways to be unfitting. One way is that, if the air became an instrument of seeing, so that it itself caused seeing, then whenever there were many viewers, he who was weaker in sight would have to be strengthened in apprehension, even though his ray was weak for transforming the air because those many rays which were joined with the air would help the weak one by many visual rays, as the strength of the light of a candle is increased by many [other] lights.

But if the seen form does not appear in the air but in the eye, and through the mediation of the air comes about in it, then what need is there for a ray to go out? For the air is continuous with the body of the eye, and the seen thing is continuous with the air; therefore the air ought to bring the form [to the eye] without a ray.

A second way by which the ray-theory is falsified is this: it is impossible that the ray be anything other than an accident and then it would be impossible for it to be moved or a body; and from this also an impossibility would follow.

For if the ray that goes out from the eye did not remain continuous with the eye and stretched out like a line, it would not act upon the eye. But if it remained joined, it would have to be spread out and apprehend the scattered thing [seen]. It would have to be like a line which, when the wind pushes it or twists it to other places, because of the impulse of the wind the eye would have to see what is not opposite to it; or else it would be broken by the wind and its continuity broken, and thus vision would be prevented.

A third [argument] is that, if something went out from the eye to meet the thing seen, it would apprehend the seen thing no less when placed far away than when placed near, in the same way; for what meets [another] is made equal to what it meets, and this does not vary because of distance unless we were to suppose that it is opposed according to the form of a pyramid, as we have said.

Nor is it possible to say that the ray strikes only some part of that which lies far away. For the whole of that which is seen is seen, and sometimes what is larger is even more seen according to a certain disposition.

These, then, are the external apprehensions. And the things that are apprehended by them are colours, odours, flavours, sounds, and what is said of touch. And by means of these are apprehended five other things, namely: greatness and smallness, distance and nearness, number of things, and shape (as circle and square), and motion and rest. And there is more error in these latter [judgements] than in those roots.

DISCOURSE ON THE INNER SENSES

Know that the inner senses are also five, namely: the common sense, the imaginative power, the cogitative [power], the estimative power, and the memorial power.

The common sense is the sense from which all these five are derived, and to which every impression of theirs is reported, and in which they are all united, so that they are as though all were suckling from it. For if there were nothing in us in which whiteness and sound were joined together, we would not know that this white thing is that whose sound we have heard. But the conjunction of whiteness and sound is apprehended neither by the eye nor by the ear.

The imaginative is the power that retains what has been imprinted on the common sense. Now to retain is something other than to receive: thus water receives form and shape, but does not retain them. Hearing, however, receives by the power of lightness and retains by the power of dryness.

If, however, the front part of the brain happens to be impeded, the retention of phantasms will be destroyed, and forgetfulness of forms will follow.

The estimative is the power that apprehends in the sensed thing that which is not sensed – as a sheep apprehends the hostility of the wolf. This does not happen through the eye, but through another power, which is to brute animals what the intellect is to man.

The memorial power is the preserver of these intentions which the estimative apprehends, and therefore it is the “chest/ark” of intentions, just as the imaginative, which preserves forms, is the “chest/ark” of forms. And these two, namely the estimative and the memorial, are in the back part of the brain. The common sense and the imaginative, however, are in the front part of the brain.

Cogitation is a power in the middle of the brain, whose function is to move, not to apprehend. For it now inquires into what is in the chest of forms, now into what is in the chest of intentions, since it is fixed (placed) between them, and it operates in these two by combining and dividing only.

For it sometimes imagines a man with two heads, or something of which one half is the form of a horse and the other half the form of a man, and other such things. It does not belong to it to discover a form without a preceding example, but it joins together things that are separated in the imagination, and separates things that are joined. This in man is commonly called the cogitative power.

The cogitative, however, in truth is reason; but phantasy (fantasia) is the instrument of cogitation, not that it itself is cogitative. For just as the conditions are suitably arranged by which the eye can move in its cavity to different directions, so that in this way sight is spread out to search for hidden and small things, so too the conditions are suitably arranged by which the intentions stored in the two chests are acquired.

The nature, therefore, of this power is to move, and it does not cease even during sleep; and by nature it moves quickly to that which has some bearing on it, either because of similarity, or because of contrariety, or because it had already been joined to it by chance when it came into the imagination. And by nature it has the function of shaping and “gesturing” (playing with forms).

What your intellect divides into parts, this power likens to a tree having many branches; and what your intellect arranges step by step, it likens to steep places and ladders. By means of this a man remembers what he has forgotten; for it does not cease to search among the forms that are in the imaginative, and it moves from one form to a neighbouring form, until it comes upon the form by which the forgotten intention is apprehended, and through which he remembers what he had forgotten.

The relation of that form to presenting something that is close to it and depends upon it is like the relation of the middle term to the conclusion, through which a man is made fit to receive the conclusion.

These, then, are the outer and inner powers. All of these are instruments, since the motive power exists only to seek what is useful or to repel what is harmful. The apprehensive powers are only scouts, searching out what they may report. And the imaginative and the memorial are for retaining what is reported; phantasy is for presenting these after they have been removed [i.e. are absent].

It is therefore necessary that there be some root of which all these are instruments, in which they are united, to which they are subjected, and by which they have their being. And this root is called the soul, which is not a body. For every member of the body is likewise an instrument fitted for the intention of the soul, to which it refers back. Therefore it is necessary that there be a soul, of which these powers and these members are the instruments.

DISCOURSE ON THE HUMAN SOUL

When the mixture of the elements is of a fairer and more perfect equality, than which nothing subtler or more beautiful can be found – as in the case of the seed (sperma) of a man, whose ripeness comes to be in the body of man from foods which are subtler than the foods of animals and of plants, and from powers and minerals which are more noble than the powers and minerals of animals – then it becomes apt for receiving from the Giver of Forms a form more beautiful than those forms, which is the soul of man.

Now this human soul has two powers: one that acts, and one that knows.

The knowing power is divided into the speculative power, as is this knowledge that God is one and that the world had a beginning; and [secondly] into the practical power, by which we acquire knowledge bound to our actions, as the knowledge that, because injustice is shameful, therefore it is not to be done.

And this practical [knowledge] is sometimes universal, as in the example just given; sometimes particular, as in this: “Injury is not to be done to Peter.”

The operating power is had by an indication or prompting of the knowing power, which is the speculative [power] joined to the body; and this operating power is called the active intellect. It is indeed called intellect, but in an equivocal sense; for by it no apprehension comes about, but only movement, according to what the intellect discerns.

For just as the motive power of an animal is only for acquiring or fleeing, so also there is in man an operating power; but its inquiry is intellectual, namely about that which is good, right, useful – even though at first it may be troublesome, so that the animal will might flee from it.

The human soul has two “faces”:

one toward the higher part, which is the superior vastness, because from it [the soul] receives sciences, and the soul has the speculative power only with respect to that part, whose function it is to receive always;

and another face toward the lower part, namely for ruling the body, and it has the active power only on this account.

It is not possible to explain what the human intellectual power is, unless it be called a certainty of apprehensions and of divisions, in order that it may be made clear by this that that power does not go forth from them nor add anything to them.

I will therefore say what has already been said, namely that apprehension is nothing other than the perception of the form of the thing apprehended. And this perception takes place in an order.

The first degree is the apprehension of sight, which apprehends a man, for example, not stripped of other things, but apprehends along with him his proper color, his proper position, and his proper measure. Even if these were not such as they are, he would still be a man; for he is not a man because of these, since these accidents are extraneous to man. Nor has sight the power of stripping humanity from those things which come to it from without and are foreign to it.

Then, from this, a form comes into phantasy equal to the form seen, according to position, measure and color, in no way stripped of accidents; and in this the phantasy does not differ from vision, except in one point: that if the thing seen were to cease to exist or to be absent, the seen form (that is, the act of vision) would indeed be destroyed.

But although the thing seen is destroyed, its form remaining in the phantasy – that is, in the power which is called imaginative – is not destroyed. And thus this [power] is to some extent separated from matter, since it does not need the existence or presence of the thing, but only that a similar form, according to its position, measure, smallness and greatness, comes into it.

On this account it could not come except into a bodily instrument, because the parts of a thing bounded by measure and extremities are not grasped except in a body, just as a form is not grasped except in a mirror, which is a body. These two powers, therefore, are bodily.

The estimative power is that by which an intention is apprehended from sensibles, as the enmity of the cat against the mouse, and of the wolf against the sheep, and the love of the sheep toward its lamb, its offspring. This also depends on matter; for if we suppose that there were no apprehension of the sensible form of the wolf, then neither would there be understood an apprehension of such an [intention].

Hence this power too is bodily, because it depends on things that are outside the truth of the thing apprehended – things that are something over and above its quidditas (whatness), and are not abstracted from it.

Yet it is clear that we apprehend humanity by its definition, and its truth, in such a way that we apprehend nothing extraneous together with it. And if we did not apprehend it by itself, we should not judge of a man that his measure, position and color are extraneous and accidental with respect to his being, because they are not of his quidditas.

Therefore there is in us a power that apprehends the quidditas, not with these accidents, but laid bare from everything except humanity. And we apprehend blackness absolutely, laid bare from everything except blackness; and similarly with the other intentions. And this power is called the intellect.

Such abstract, that is, stripped, forms the phantasy is not able to apprehend; for we cannot imagine a man except as being near or far from us, or according to some measure of smallness or greatness, sitting or standing, naked or clothed – all of which are extraneous to the quidditas of man.

Therefore this apprehension is neither of the imagination nor of sight, and yet it is [in us]; therefore it belongs to another power, and this is the one sought, which is called intellect.

This is the power by which man apprehends the sciences of things unknown, through a middle term in acts of believing (syllogisms), and through description and definition in acts of imagining. But its apprehensions are universal, because they are abstracted; therefore its relation to each of the singulars of some intention is one and the same.

This power is not in the other animals; hence all the other species of animals keep the same course in their habits, and they do not employ ingenuity to escape from that to which they are driven, nor do they possess [understanding] except so far as is necessary for them. For what is proper to them is a natural attending and obeying.

Therefore the proper characteristic of man, in which other animals do not share, is intellect and belief about universals; by which it belongs to him to discover the unknown from the known, and the arts from their works, and other things of this sort.

And these two powers [the knowing and the operating], together with the other powers, belong to one soul, as has been said above.

Now we shall say that the intelligible power has degrees, and according to these it has different names.

The first degree is when nothing of intelligible things is yet present in act, but only the aptitude for receiving, as in a child. This is called the material intellect, and the intellect in potency.

Then there appear in it two kinds of intelligible forms. One kind is of those that are first and true, to which its nature leads it so that they are imprinted in it without inquiry.

The second [kind] is of first principles (maximae) which hearing receives without demonstration, as we have already shown; and of these first principles, those which are most necessary in the sciences and in actions are the most manifest.

When this has taken place, it will be called intellect in habit, because it is now able to acquire intelligibles by speculation, if it wishes.

Then, when some of the speculative intelligibles are acquired in it, if it acquires them by thinking, it is called intellect in act; for then it is not as one wise man who has forgotten what he knew, but as one who is able to know whenever he wishes.

But if the form of what is known is present to its intellect without inquiry and meditation, that form is called the acquired intellect, that is, a knowledge acquired from some of the divine causes, which is called an angel or agent intelligence.

Yet these apprehensions cannot be apprehended by a bodily instrument, just as the apprehensions of the external and internal senses cannot be apprehended except by a bodily instrument. The apprehender of these universal intelligibles is the soul, which is a substance existing in itself, which is not a body, nor imprinted in a body, nor does it perish when the body perishes, but remains living forever, either glad or sorrowful.

That apprehension of intelligible things takes place without the body is shown by ten things which are very strong signs: seven of them are signs going before, and three are necessary demonstrations.

First, the apprehending senses, with their bodily instrument, when some harm befalls the instrument, either do not apprehend at all, or their apprehension is weakened and they err therein.

Second, the senses do not apprehend their own instruments; for sight neither apprehends itself nor its instrument.

Third, if there were in the sense some quality, it would not apprehend it; for it never apprehends anything except what is outside itself. So much is this so that even when the bad condition of the complexion is firmly seated in the body, like a chronic illness, it does not apprehend its own heat by the power of touch.

Fourth, it does not apprehend itself. For if the estimative power wished to estimate itself – that is, estimation itself – this would not be possible for it.

Fifth, when it apprehends something strong, it cannot immediately thereafter apprehend something weak, except after some little time. A faint sound is not heard straightway after a very great thunderclap, nor a faint color after a very bright one, except after some time; nor is a slight sweetness apprehended after a very strong sweetness, because the body is “infected” by that strong object apprehended.

Sixth, if a strong thing apprehended should suddenly come upon it, the instrument is harmed or destroyed: the eye is injured by an excessively strong light, and hearing is injured by a vehement sound.

Seventh, the bodily powers grow weak after forty years, that is, when the complexion of the body is weakened.

All this takes place in the opposite way in the intelligible power. For it apprehends itself, and apprehends its own apprehension – that is, its own quality – and apprehends that which is said to be its instrument, namely the heart and the brain; and it apprehends the weak after the strong, and the hidden after the manifest. And in most men it grows stronger after forty years.

If anyone should say that the intelligible power also is hindered from apprehending by an infirmity in the bodily complexion, it is to be said that its being hindered, when its instrument is hindered, does not mean that it has no action in itself. Rather, it may be granted that the instrument acts upon it in two ways.

One way is this: when the instrument is injured, the soul is taken up with caring for it, and is drawn away from the intelligible realm. For when the soul is occupied with fear, it does not apprehend delight; nor, when it is occupied with anger, does it apprehend pain. And when it is occupied with considering some intelligible proposition, then at the time of that occupation it does not apprehend anything else.

Therefore, when it is occupied with one thing, it is withdrawn from another. It is thus likely that it is taken up with the weakness of the instrument, because that must be cured.

The other way is this: sometimes at the beginning the intelligible power needs a bodily instrument, and afterwards it can perform its action apart from it – as one who is going to a certain land needs a vehicle, but when he has arrived, he no longer needs it.

Therefore, if there is any action of this power without an instrument, this shows that it acts by itself. Hence, even though a thousand of its actions are hindered because of the injury of the instrument, yet it may be granted that this happens for these two reasons. Therefore the one who brought this forward as an objection had no valid ground for doing so.

The eighth point is a demonstration that abstract universal knowledge cannot exist in a body. For every body is divisible; but what is not divisible does not exist in a divisible thing. Now knowledge is not divisible; therefore it does not exist in a body.

To these propositions indeed no one can object. And the claim that there might be an indivisible body like an atom has already been destroyed; therefore knowledge does not exist in such a thing.

But if it existed in a divisible body, then it would be diffused in it like heat and colour, and when that body is divided, the knowledge would likewise be divided along with it. Yet one single knowledge of one single known object is not divided; for there is in it no one thing and another in any way. Therefore it is impossible that it be in a body.

If someone objects and says: “Why did you say that one single knowledge is not divided?”, he will be answered thus: abstract intelligible knowledge is either a knowledge in which no multiplicity can be thought to be, nor any capacity for division as, for example, the knowledge of “being” simply, and the knowledge of unity alone, and because in this known object there is not one thing and another, neither therefore is there in its knowledge, since knowledge is an exemplar co-equal with the thing known or else it is a knowledge in which multiplicity is thought to be, as the knowledge of ten, and the knowledge of man, who consists of “animal” and “rational”, which are its genus and difference.

For perhaps someone will think that in the knowledge of ten there are parts, because ten has parts; but this is absurd. For ten, insofar as it is ten, has no part, since what is less than ten is not ten. It is not like water, which, when divided, is such that every part of it is water; rather, it is like the head, for example, which is one thing in every man, having no parts, although its parts are flesh and bone and blood, of which none is a head. And likewise flesh or a part of it exists and is divisible; but the head, insofar as it is a head, is not divisible.

Now every thing known, unless it be one according to this mode of unity, will not be one known object. Man too is one known object: for insofar as he is man, he is one thing, and his form is one, by whose unity he is understood as one man. He is therefore one, not receiving division.

Nevertheless we shall bring forward yet another general proof to show that it is impossible for knowledge to be divided. For if knowledge were divided in a body on account of the division of the body, then one of its parts would either be different from the whole or not different. If in some respect it were not different from the whole, then the part would be altogether like the whole, which is absurd, for then it would not be a part.

If, on the other hand, it were different, then necessarily it would either be different as species from species, as figure is different from colour (which here is inappropriate, since figure is not contained within colour, whereas every part is within its whole); or, though existing within it, it would be different as animal is different from man, which is the diversity of genus from species, although the genus is within the species; or it would be different as “one” is different from “ten”.

But it is false that it is different as genus from species; for this would entail that the knowledge of “animal” would be in one part and the knowledge of “rational” in another part. And since the whole knowledge of man would not consist in the knowledge of either of them, then no knowledge at all would be had of man.

Further, if we were to suppose one of the two parts placed, as it were, above, and the other below, to which of them would the knowledge of the genus be assigned? For one of them would have to serve as the subject of the genus and the other as the subject of the difference.

Further, although man is composed of “animal” and “rational”, still “animal” is not composed of things tending to infinity, but of things that arrive at one first [principle]. Otherwise it would follow that nothing could be known except after infinite knowledges, and this would be impossible.

If, however, it were different in quantity, as one compared to ten, then that part would have to be either knowledge or not. If it were not knowledge, it would follow that knowledge came from parts which are not knowledges which would be the same as if blackness arose from parts which are figures, which is impossible.

If, however, it were knowledge, then what is known by it would either be the same known object as that of the whole, and thus the part would be equal to the whole; or it would be another known object, and then the absurdity would follow that the knowledge of the whole known object would be something over and above the knowledge of the parts and thus there would not arise, from the knowledge of figure and of blackness, a knowledge of quantity, although they are knowledges of the parts of the whole known object.

So we have now set out the argument about a known object which has no part, from which it is made clear that it is impossible for knowledge to be divided.

The ninth point is a proof that the abstract intelligible which comes to be in the soul of man, as has been said, is abstracted from position and measure. It is necessary that its abstraction be either with respect to that in which it comes to be, namely the soul, or with respect to that from which it comes.

But it is false that it is abstracted with respect to that from which it comes. For man does not light upon the definition of man or his truth, nor does he apprehend in his intellect anything except of a singular man, who has his own proper measure and position. But the intellect abstracts him from measure and position, and so he remains abstracted from measure and position, because that in which he comes to be separates him from position and from other such things.

Otherwise, whatever exists in something having position and measure would, on account of that, also itself have position and measure without doubt.

The tenth point is this: what they posit as the instrument of the intellect namely the heart and the brain the intellect can apprehend. But when it apprehends, its apprehension is nothing other than the acquisition of a form; this is what is understood in every apprehension.

Now the acquired form must be either the very same form of the instrument which is present, or another form numerically distinct from it, but similar. But it is false that it be the very form of the instrument; for since that form is always in the instrument, it would then have to be always apprehending the instrument which is not the case. For sometimes it does not remember the instrument, and sometimes it passes it over; but to pass over what is always present is impossible.

If, however, it is numerically distinct from it, then either it subsists in that same power and not in the body, that is, not in the instrument in which case it will be shown to exist in itself and not in a body or it subsists together in the body, so that this numerically distinct form is at the same time in that same power and in the body which is the instrument, and is of such a sort as the body which is the instrument. And from this it would follow that two similar forms are joined in one body, which is absurd, just as if two blacknesses were joined in the same subject.

But we have already shown that duality arises only because of distinction; and here there is no distinction. Hence, if no accident is predicated of one of them that is not predicated of the other, then the one is the other and there is identity between them. It has accordingly been shown that that position is absurd.

The eleventh indication: we have already premised that every bodily power is only a power over a finite thing. But a power over an infinite thing is not in a body. Now the intelligible power is a power over intelligible forms and bodily [forms] and the others, which are infinite, since what the intellect can apprehend of number and of all intelligibles is infinite. It is therefore impossible that this power be bodily.

To demonstrate, furthermore, that the soul does not perish when the body perishes, we shall also add that it begins in the body. For if the soul existed before the body, then either there would be many souls or one. But it is false that there are many; for multitude exists only because of diversity and otherness that come from accidents. While there are not yet matters that befall them, from which diversity arises, no diversity between them can be conceived.

But if there were one only, this too is impossible, since in bodies they are many. Now one does not become many, nor many one, unless there is space and measure, so that they are at one time continuous and at another time separated.

That there are many in bodies is shown by this: sometimes not everything that John knows is known by Peter. But if their souls were one, then the same thing would not be at once known and unknown to the same soul.

We shall therefore say that, although souls come to be together with bodies, they do not, however, come to be because of the body. For it has been said that a body cannot be the cause of something coming to be from nothing, much less of the coming to be of that which is not a body. Rather, their cause is the Giver of Forms, who is an eternal intelligible substance; and the thing caused remains while its cause remains. And those substances remain forever.

If someone objects that just as the soul needed a body in order to begin to be, so likewise it needs a body in order to remain, it will be said that it does not need a body except on this condition: that it should begin to be, not as a [producing] cause.

For the body is like a net, by which this effect is caught from its cause; but after it has come into being by means of the net, then there is no need for the net to remain.

The way in which the body is a condition of the soul and not its cause is this: if the soul came directly from the Cause, then the soul would be one, or two, or infinitely many in each moment; but all of this is impossible. For no one number is more worthy than another number in this respect, nor is there any choice among numbers.

And if it had created only one, it would not be characteristic of it to create only one, since it is equally possible for a second to be made by it as the first. Since, therefore, what exists is not more possible than what does not exist, it remains established that the soul does not exist before the seed is fitted so as to become the instrument of the soul, about which it is occupied.

Hence it has come about that it is more fitting for it to be than not to be, and that their proper number is according to the number of seeds made apt in wombs. And this is the condition of beginning to be: because it is rather to be than not to be; and after being, it remains with its cause, not because of the body which was its condition.

The proof for destroying the opinion of those who say that souls enter into other bodies is this. When the soul ceases to rule the body because of the destruction of its complexion and the impossibility of receiving rule, it would have to be occupied either with ruling a stone or a piece of wood, or something not apt to receive rule and thus it would be a soul for it which is impossible; or else it would be occupied with ruling some seed that has been made apt to receive rule, namely the seed of a man or an animal, as some have thought, which is absurd.

For every seed that is apt to receive a soul deserves the coming of a soul from the intelligible substance which is the principle of souls, by a natural merit and not by chance or choice. For it would then follow that sometimes two souls met in one body, which is absurd.

For the aptitude of the seed to receive the light of the soul from the Giver of souls is like the aptitude of a body to receive the light of the sun when nothing is interposed. And if nothing is interposed, and there is a candle present there, then the candle and the sun shine together, and the light of the sun is not hindered because of the light of the candle.

Likewise, the seed is not hindered from being fitted to receive a soul from its principle, even if there is some soul in the world not occupied with a body; for then it would follow that two souls are joined in one body. But there is no human being who does not perceive that he has one soul.

Therefore it is unfitting that souls, having gone forth from their bodies, should pass over into other bodies.

FIFTH TREATISE
On that which flows into the soul from the agent intellect

The Fifth Treatise is on that which flows into the soul from the agent intellect. There is no doubt that the consideration of the agent intellect belongs to the treatise on divine things, in which it has already been stated both what an “intelligence” is and what its property is.

Here, however, we do not consider it according to what it is in itself now, but according as it impresses [something] into souls; and even here the consideration is not of it in so far as it impresses into souls, but in so far as the soul is impressed by it.

Therefore in this treatise we shall say, first, how the soul signifies that there is an agent intellect; then, how knowledge flows into the soul from it; then, how the soul is made blessed by it after death; and then, how the soul which is separated from it by evil morals is punished; then, of the cause of true vision; then, of the cause of false vision; and then, of the cause by which the soul apprehends knowledge of hidden things by joining itself to the “world” (realm) of the sciences; then, of the cause of presenting and beholding in waking forms which have no existence outside; and then, of the intention of prophecy and of miracles, and of their order; and finally, that prophecies exist and how they are necessary.

These, then, are ten [points].

1. How the soul signifies that there is an agent intellect

The human soul knows abstract intelligibles and universal intentions, in the beginning of childhood, indeed only in potency, but later it becomes knowing in act. Now everything that passes from potency to act needs a cause by which it is drawn into act; therefore this soul needs a cause.

But it is impossible that this cause be a body. For a body cannot be the cause of that which is not in a body, as has been said above. Now the knowing of intelligibles is brought about through a soul which is not a body and is not imprinted in a body, since it does not enter into a place or boundary in such a way that some other body might be near it, or be set opposite to it and act upon it.

Therefore its cause is a substance stripped of matter, and by this we understand the agent intellect. For our notion of an “intelligence” is only that it is bare [of matter]. Our notion of its being agent is that it is always acting upon souls without ceasing.

And this [agent intellect] is altogether one of the number of the intelligible substances, about which certainty has already been given in the treatise on divine things. Now that which among all of them is most worthy that this should be attributed to it is the intelligence which is the last of the ten intelligences. And the Law also plainly teaches that these cognitions do not arise in men and in prophets except through the mediation of angels.

2. How abstract intelligibles and universal intentions come to be in the soul

The imagined sensibles, unless they are present in the fantasia (imagination), do not yield from themselves abstract universal intentions; rather, in the beginning of childhood they are like dark forms.

But when the aptitude of the soul has been completed, the light of the agent intellect shines upon the forms present in the imagination, and from them there arise in the soul abstract universals – so that from the form of Peter it apprehends man in general, and from this tree tree in general, and so with the others.

Thus, from the forms of coloured things, when the sun shines upon them, images come to be (reflections) in sound eyes.

The sun, therefore, is the exemplar of the agent intellect; and the power of seeing is the exemplar of the soul’s prudence; while the exemplars of the imagined things in the imagination are the external sensibles, which in the darkness are sensible and visible only in potency.

But the eye that is in the dark is a seeing [power] in potency, and does not pass into act except through a cause, namely through the shining of the sun. So it is also here.

For while this light shines, the intelligible power discerns, among the forms received in the imagination, the accidental from the essential, and discerns the very being of the thing from foreign things, and it receives that being stripped of those externals which are not essential.

And thus stripped, it is the universal, after the intellect has emptied it of its singularity, by removing those things through which it is made singular, namely the accidents that are besides the essence. Therefore it remains so that its relation to all its singulars is one and the same.

3. On felicity (blessedness)

When the soul has been made fortunate through its aptitude for receiving an inflowing from the agent intellect, and securely rejoices because of its indissoluble union with it, it ceases from the business of ruling the body and from those things which belong to the senses; yet the body does not cease to pull it back and hinder and prevent it from a perfect union with that [intellect].

But when it is freed from the occupation with the body by death, the veil and the hindrance are removed, and the union endures forever, since the soul remains forever and the agent intellect remains forever, and the outpouring on its part is most abundant, for this belongs to it from itself.

The soul, moreover, is of itself apt to receive from it when there is nothing to hinder; and there is nothing to hinder when it is present and immediately united.

Hence, because the soul needs the body and the senses at the beginning, so that by their mediation it may acquire images, and from the images gather together abstract universals and acquire them through their mediation for at the beginning it cannot apprehend intelligible objects except through the senses therefore sense is useful at the start, like a net and a mount which bring [someone] to where he aims to go.

But once one has reached that goal, the very things which were aids for arriving become afterwards hindrances, so that one counts it a gain to be freed from them, because they hinder what he intends to do from being done easily, delay arrival at it, and obstruct what is intended.

So it is here as well.

This felicity of the soul is nothing other than that its delight is so great that it cannot be expressed; and delight is nothing other than what we have said, namely that delight is nothing else than when each power apprehends that which is adjudged to its nature, without impediment.

Now the property of the soul’s nature is to know and to understand the certainties of things as they are. These intelligible things in no way belong to sense.

Already the comparison has been made between the delight of the intelligible power and that of the sensible power, and it has been shown that there is no comparison between the delight of the sensible power and the delight of the intelligible power.

And it has been shown that the reason why, while we are hindered by the body, we are exempt from the apprehension of this delight which is on account of the sciences, is nothing other than the hindrance of the body; and what has been said has been said of all these individual [souls].

Now when those cognitions which are assigned to the nature of the intelligible power and are its proper domain – such as the knowledge of God and of his angels and his prophets, and of how existence comes from him, and other things of this sort – are present to the soul, in such a way that the soul, though existing in the body, is taken up only with these and does not love the body nor its accidents, and is most earnest in the understanding of them, then after it has been separated from the body, its union [with the agent intellect] will endure, and its disposition will be brought to perfection, and it will delight in a delight whose being cannot be expressed in speech.

And the reason why our desire is not now intense toward this is that we have not yet tasted it. Just as if the delight of sexual union were described to those who are entirely unfamiliar with such union, they would not only not desire it, but would even abhor the very idea of it.

This intelligible delight belongs only to the soul which is made perfect in this world.

But if it abstains from shameful things and yet is devoid of the sciences, then its whole attention is in imaginations and phantasms. Hence it is not far from sometimes imagining delightful forms as in dreams, and from modeling what is said to it about paradise according to sensible things; and then some one of the heavenly bodies is the subject of its imagination, for it has been said that imagination cannot occur except through a body.

4. On torment

The fourth [point] is torment, when the soul is kept away from this felicity which is owed to it according to its nature. For when separation takes place between it and that which it loves, then it is punished.

And it is separated from it only because it follows pleasures, and all its concern is with what the bodily nature desires, to the point that there come to be in its soul dispositions that obey and desire only what suits the body and the delight of this base and corruptible world.

Thus, through practice, that disposition is imprinted in its soul, and its desire for that [object] cleaves to it strongly. Afterwards, when, through death, the instrument of the desired thing has been lost, its desire and love remain, and this is an ineffable torment.

And this is what prevents it from applying itself to and clinging to the agent intellect.

For the soul in this world is not prevented from joining itself to it because it is “infused” into the body, since, as has been said, it is not in the body, but because of its being occupied with the body’s accidents and pleasures and love for that same body, and because of its great desire for it. This is what separates between the soul and that which belongs to its nature.

In this world, however, the soul does not feel its torment, because, being occupied with the body, it is like someone who, taken up in battle or in danger, does not perceive his toil – the causes of which we have already assigned.

But after death, the occupation is removed and the craving remains. And because the instrument is gone, and the craving recalls it to that which it has lost, this craving indeed prevents it from joining itself to that which belongs to its nature; and this is the greatest and eternal punishment.

And such a soul is one that is devoid of the sciences and defiled by the pursuit of pleasures.

The man, however, in whom the intelligible power has been brought to perfection through the acquisition of abstract [intelligibles], but who nevertheless follows pleasures – in him the disposition of pleasures and the love of them remain in his soul and draw it downward, but the knowledge which he has draws it toward a higher fullness.

And from this opposition of forces drawing in contrary directions there arises in him a torment greatly to be feared. Yet it will come to an end and is not eternal, because the substance in him has been completed, and those dispositions are accidental.

Thus at death the causes for which pleasures are sought and pursued cease; therefore those dispositions are wiped out shortly afterwards, and he is not tormented forever. The punishment is removed sooner or later according as those dispositions are strong or weak.

But the one who has already acquired the love of having perfection in the sciences, by exercising himself in their principles, and then has given it up, his punishment is multiplied, because to his pains there is added the pain of what remains for him to learn, while he himself is eager to learn it.

For whoever does not know the value of a thing does not desire it; and when he perceives that he does not possess it, he does not grieve – just as, when a certain king has been killed and the kingdom is taken away from his sons, one of whom is a child who does not yet know what it is to reign, and another knows, having already begun to rule, but has not yet reached the perfection and permanence of ruling: the latter’s grief is great and his punishment is multiplied, whereas the child is ignorant of the loss.

Therefore the Law says that the greater punishment on the Day of Judgment is for those men who, though they were wise, lived badly; and it also says that he who grows in knowledge and does not grow in good living will be far removed from God.

The fifth point is about the cause of true vision.
Know first that sleeping is nothing other than the withdrawal of the spirit from the outer parts to the inner.

Now the spirit is a subtle body composed from the vapours of the humours, whose seat is the heart, and it is the vehicle of the vital and animal powers, by which the sensible and motive powers pass into their instruments. And therefore, if something blocks its course along the nerves by which sense is supplied, sense is destroyed, and the falling-sickness and numbness follow.

Thus, when a man’s arm is tightly bound, at once he feels numbness in the extremities of the hand, and immediately his sense there is destroyed, until the arm is unbound, and the sense returns after a little time. This spirit, moreover, is diffused to the outer parts of the body by means of the arteries.

And for certain causes this spirit grows sluggish in the inner parts: as from long rest; or from being occupied with acting within, when it is cooking the food, and then sleep rules or overcomes when the stomach is full; and likewise when the spirit is scant and diminished and does not suffice for both exterior and interior – the causes of whose increase and decrease belong to medicine. Weariness, moreover, is a diminution of the spirit through its being dissolved by motion; and likewise when moisture and heaviness befall it, it is hindered from the swiftness of motion, as happens in the bath and after one comes out of it, and likewise through that which moistens the brain.

When therefore the senses have come to rest, because the spirit that carries the power of sense has been drawn back from them by one of the causes mentioned, then the soul remains free from its occupation with the senses; for it never ceases to meditate upon the things which the senses report to it.

So when it finds itself free, and there is nothing to hinder, it then becomes apt to be joined to noble spiritual and intelligible substances in which there is described (or engraved) the being of all things that are – those which are called the “free and preserved”. From that which is in those substances, of the forms of things, there is imprinted in the soul especially that which agrees with its intention and is more at its heart.

And the impressing of those forms into the soul by those substances, when the soul is joined with them, is like the representing (or sealing) of a form in one mirror from another mirror set opposite to it, when there is nothing between them; for whatever appears in one mirror appears in the other according to its measure.

Now if those forms are singulars, they pass from the soul into the imagination, and the preserving power will keep them according to their mode; and the imaginative power, which flatters things, will not recast them into other images. And then that vision will be sure and will not need interpretation, because what was seen is precisely what remains.

But if the fantasy gains the upper hand, or the soul is weak in apprehending the forms, then the fantasy becomes swifter according to its nature, to change and re-image what the soul has seen: as when it turns a man into a tree, and an enemy into a serpent; or changes it into something similar which has some small likeness to that [first thing]; or into something contrary – as when a man sees that a son is born to him, and a daughter will be born, and likewise conversely in such a vision. This will therefore need an interpreter.

Now the meaning of interpretation is that the interpreter should consider beforehand, from that form which has remained in his memory, what it was more possible that the soul had seen, since the fantasy changed it into this; and this is like when a man thinks on something, and from that his fantasy is changed to another thing, and from that again to another, so that he forgets what he first thought.

The manner therefore of remembering will be by resolving [backwards]; thus he will say: “This fantasy which I now have – how did it come into my memory?” And then he will recall the cause which made this have to be, and then, considering that cause, he will recall the cause of that, and so, resolving step by step, he will sometimes light upon the first one, by which slipping down he has fallen to this last. And because the changes of fantasies are not kept in one only way, therefore the modes of interpretation are multiplied, and vary according to particulars, and according to dispositions, and skills, and the seasons of the year, and according to the health and sickness of the sleeper; and it comes about that he cannot find the interpretation except according to a way of estimation, because a veil which is there hinders.

The sixth point is about vain dreams, that is, those which have no root. Their cause is the movement of the imaginative power and its instability. For in most dispositions it does not cease to make images and to change them, nor does it cease, even in time of sleep in most dispositions, to make images.

For when the soul is weak, it remains occupied with the image-making of the fantasy, just as when awake it remains occupied with the senses; and then it is not apt to apply itself to spiritual substances. But when the instability of the fantasy has become stronger from some of the causes, it does not cease to dally and to bring in forms which have no being, and these remain in the preserving power until the man awakes and remembers what he saw in sleep.

And there are for this dalliance of the fantasy certain further causes in bodily dispositions and in certain temperaments. For if choler dominates in the temperament, then it will image what is seen in yellowish things. If heat dominates, it will liken them to fire or a hot bath. If cold dominates, it will liken them to snow or rain. If melancholy dominates, it will liken them to black and horrible things.

But if the soul is taken up with meditation, and the intention of that meditation clings to the fantasy, then the fantasy will not cease to turn around what depends upon that meditation. Nor does a form of fire, for example, come into the fantasy when heat dominates, except because the heat which is in one place passes into another which is near to it, or has some relation to it – as the light of the sun passes into bodies, so that it is the cause of their existing, in that things which are created exist in an existence flowing from his grace into another than himself.

Now the imaginative power is placed in a warm body; hence its impression is an impression suited to its nature. And it itself is not a body, so as to receive that heat itself; nevertheless it receives from that heat that which it is of its own nature to receive, namely the form of the hot, and the image thereof, that is, of fire. This is the cause of this.

The seventh point is about the cause of knowing future things while awake.
Now the reason why sleep is needed for the apprehension of the knowledge of future things by vision is nothing other than the weakness of the soul and its occupation with the senses. When these rest, the soul is joined to intelligible substances and is made fit to receive from them.

But this can also befall some soul while awake, for two causes.

The first is when the soul is so strong that it is not hindered by the senses, nor do they lord it over it, nor drown it so that because of them it is held back from its own intention. Rather, by reason of its strength, it is widened so as to contemplate at once both parts, the higher and the lower – as when someone is so strong that he can at the same time write and speak and understand someone speaking.

It is therefore possible that a soul of this sort, because it ceases from being occupied with the senses, may be lifted up to the higher world, in which something of things is made manifest to it; but this manifestation is like a flash swiftly passing, and this is one kind of prophesying.

If, however, the fantasy is weak, then what is revealed to it about hidden things will remain in the preserving power just as it is, and it will be a true sign (presage). But if it is strong, it will be naturally apt to reshape [it]; this then is a presage which needs interpretation, just as a vision in sleep needs interpretation in this matter.

The other cause is when dryness and heat so rule the temperament that a man becomes epileptic through the rule of melancholy and is estranged from those things which the senses are wont to bring. Then, with his eyes open, he becomes confused and stupefied, absent from what he sees and hears.

And this happens because the spirit is too weak to go forth to the exterior parts. Yet it is not impossible that to the soul of such a man something of hidden things should be revealed by spiritual substances, which will speak and run on through his tongue, while he himself is unaware of what he is saying. This happens to some who are called “demoniacs” and epileptics, and to some Arabian seers, and they often say something in accordance with what is to be.

And this manner is a way of imperfection; the first, however, is more perfect.

The eighth point is about the cause of seeing, while awake, forms which have no being.

Because the soul first apprehends hidden things imperfectly, and they remain in the preserving power according as they are apprehended, therefore it receives them weakly, because the imaginative power rules over it and likens them to a sensible form.

When however that form is strengthened in the imaginative faculty, it descends to the common sense, and the form is sealed in the common sense, flowing into it from the imaginative and fantastic [power]. For to see is that a form falls into the common sense. For the form which is outside is not itself sensed, but is the cause that there appears in the common sense a form like to it: as it is outside, so also within.

In whatever way therefore a thing is sensed, it will be that it itself is in the common sense; and this is vision, because whenever it has fallen into the common sense, a man will be seeing it, even though his eyelids are closed or he be in the dark. And what a man imagines while awake is not, for any other reason, not sealed in the common sense so as to become seen, except that the common sense is occupied with what the outer senses bring from external things, which are more numerous and stronger; and reason refutes and falsifies what fantasy invents of forms, and on this account the imagining of those [forms] is not strengthened in wakefulness.

But when reason is weak for refuting and falsifying on account of some infirmity, then it will not be far from happening that it is sealed in the common sense, and the sick person sees forms which have no being. And when fear is dominant, and there is a firm opinion and fantasy of the thing that is feared, but the soul and reason are weakened for falsifying it, sometimes the form of the thing feared is imaged to the sense in such a way that it is presented, and he sees what he fears; and for this reason the fantasy of a fearful man sees fearful forms, and this is the cause of those things which are called iane, which are said to exist and to speak and to be heard in woods.

Sometimes too the desire of such an infirm man, who is of a weak soul, is strengthened, so that he sees as though that which he desires were being presented; hence he stretches out his hand towards it as though he were going to eat it, and for this reason he sees forms which have no being.

The ninth point is about the causes of miracles and wonders, which are three.

The first is that there is a property in the power of the soul and in its essence, such that it imprints upon the hyle of the world, removing one form and bestowing another. For it may imprint upon the air, turning it into clouds, and then there comes about rain like a deluge, or in such measure as is fitting for the season, or some other thing of this sort. And this is possible. For it has been said in the treatise on divine things that hyle is subject to souls and is imprinted by them, and that these forms come to it from the impressions of the celestial souls.

Now the human soul is of the same substance as they and is most like them, although its relation to them is as the relation of a candle to the sun; but this does not prevent its being like them, inasmuch as a candle acts in heating and giving light just as the sun [does]. Likewise the human soul acts upon the hyle of the world, but it acts rather upon its own proper world, that is, its body.

Thus, when a horrible form comes into the soul, the complexion of the body is changed, and from this there arises the moisture of sweat. When the form of victory comes into the soul, the complexion of the body grows warm and the face reddens. And when the desired form comes into the soul, there arises in the emission of the semen a vaporous heat that moves the wind, so that the veins of the instrument of coitus are filled and are made ready for it.

Now this heat and this moisture and this coldness which are in the body from these imaginings do not come from some other heat or from some other cold or moisture, but from imagination alone. Therefore imagination alone is the cause of the production of these changes in the hyle of the body. And this does not happen because the soul is in the body. For the soul is not in the body, since then it would be necessary that it act in no other body, nor upon the hyle of the world, in a manner similar to this action.

Rather, it depends by nature upon its own proper body with which it began, and therefore it naturally loves it and is inclined to it; nor is it a wonder if in the soul there is such a natural affection. For if someone’s son were to fall into fire or water, the mother at once throws herself in there after him. Since, then, it is true that she loves another body which is separated from her own, why should it not be true that she naturally loves her own body, although she does not exist in it, nor in the body of her son? And this affection of love towards its own body causes it to imprint upon it.

Sometimes, however, the impression of some soul passes over into another body, in such a way that it destroys the spirit through its estimation and infects a man through its estimation, and this is called fascination. And because of this there is that proverb that “the eye casts a man into the pit and a camel into the cauldron”, and it is said that men are fascinated, and this is true.

The meaning of this is that, because a camel greatly pleases someone and he marvels at it, and his soul is malicious and envious, he pictures to himself the fall of the camel, and the body of the camel is infected by his estimation, and at once it falls. Since this is possible, it is not far-fetched that some soul much stronger than this should sometimes imprint upon the hyle of the world, producing heat and cold and motion; and from these three, namely heat, cold, and motion, all the prosperity of this world is derived, as was said before in the things that happen in the air and other [things]. And this kind of thing is properly called greatness and a miracle.

The second [cause] is the speculative power.

For the soul is clarified to such a point that it becomes most apt to be joined with the Agent Intellect, so that the sciences are poured into it. For among souls, one is such as needs teaching, another such as does not need it. Among those that need teaching, one is such as does not receive it although it studies much; another is such as easily receives it; and another is such as of itself discovers the sciences without a teacher.

For if the sciences were considered, they would indeed be found to be inventions of souls. For it is not the case that one teacher learns from another teacher, and he from another, and so on to infinity; rather, we come at last to one who learned by himself. For there is no inquirer who does not discover many things by himself without being taught.

For first the conclusion passes through his mind, and then he is stirred to know the middle term as though it came into his soul and he knew not whence; or first he perceives the middle term and then the conclusion is presented to him. Thus, for example, when someone, seeing the stone descending downwards, notices that unless there were diversity of parts, the stone would not descend downward. Then he perceives that the diversity of parts is only through the remoteness or nearness of a body; but this cannot be understood except through [something] surrounding and through a centre. And in this way he perceives that the heaven is the surrounding [body] and that there must needs be a heaven.

Or he sees motion and perceives that everything contingent needs a cause from which it happens; and motion tends to infinity. But because this [infinite tendency] is found only in circular [motion], he perceives that circular motion is not natural, since it is nothing other than the revolution of that which departs from its place. Whence it needs a soul; and the soul needs an intelligence, as was said above. This and similar things it is not impossible to perceive.

And when this has been understood, again it is not impossible in this way to arrive, either in a long time or in a short, at the ultimate of the things that are understood. But the man to whom all these intelligibles are revealed in a short time without teaching is called most wise, or a prophet. And this is greatness and a miracle, and it is possible, not absurd.

For since it is possible that a man be so low that he cannot grasp teaching, so also conversely it is possible that a man be so exalted and subtle that he does not need teaching. How, indeed, can this be denied, when among pupils one surpasses another in knowing the truth of the sciences, although he is of less study but of stronger spirit and more subtle wit? Thus that one [man] should always be capable of increasing in this way is among the things that are possible.

The third [cause] is the imaginative power.

For when the soul is strong while awake, it is joined to the world of foreknowledges, as was said, and what the soul apprehends, the fantasy likens to beautiful forms and modulated voices; and then, while awake, it sees and hears, just as it is wont to see and hear in sleep, for the reason we have spoken of.

Whence the form likened to a noble substance is a marvelous, most beautiful form; and this is the angel whom the prophet or the most wise man sees. And the revelations that come to the soul because of its conjunction with excellent substances are as it were adorned, melodious words which fall into the common sense and are heard. This too is possible, not absurd.

These are the orders of prophecy. And in whomever these three modes come together, that man is truly the most excellent prophet; and this grade is the highest of the grades of men, which is joined to the grades of the angels. But prophets differ in this: sometimes one will have two of these three, sometimes one of them; sometimes he will have nothing but pure vision; sometimes he will have something of each of the three. And on this account their degrees differ according to the order of the differences of nearness and remoteness from God and His angels.

The tenth point is that it is necessary that there be a prophet, and that it must be believed that he exists.

For the world is not governed except according to a rule which is common to all creatures, so that by it judgment may be made justly; otherwise men would kill one another and the world would perish. And because rain is necessary for the governance of the world, therefore divine providence has not failed to attribute to the heaven the nature of giving rain.

So in like manner the governance of the world altogether needs a man who makes known the way in which men are to be fitted to this world and to the other. But not every man can fulfill this. Yet this governance exists in the world; therefore the cause of the governance exists, and that which is the cause of the governance also exists.

Now that which is the cause of the governance in this matter is a creature of God upon His earth, by whose mediation the creature comes to notice the fitness of this world and of the other. And for this reason it is said that God has implanted in things a nature of noticing, because just as He has given to each thing its creation, so also [He has given] a sense of noticing.

Therefore the angel is the intermediary between God and the prophet, and the prophet is the intermediary between the angel and the wise; and the wise are intermediaries between the prophet and the common people. The wise man therefore is nearest to the prophet, and the prophet is nearest to the angel, and the angel nearest to God. Then the degrees of angels and of prophets and of wise men differ according to the order of the differences of nearness and remoteness, of which there is no number.

This, then, is what we wished to set forth concerning the sciences of the philosophers, logical, divine, and natural.