The Tree of Science

12 The Elemental Tree.

[Column 1]
(we have said) and its place is in the concavity of the sphere of the moon, which is full of it, so that nature does not tolerate a vacuum, because if it did tolerate it, natural things would be impossible. This trunk and chaos is invisible by reason of the confusion in which it is, and because its parts are continuous and each is in the other, and because visibility is only of discrete parts, just like air, which participates with the eyes by contact, and indeed, the eyes cannot see it. And also because in the trunk its powers are unformed, such as quantity, quality, and other accidents sustained upon the confusion, because it is necessary for them to be confused. And in the substantial and accidental confusion are sown parts disposed to be formed in individuals actually existing under their species, just as man, who has an individual body, and a lion similarly, and in each of them there is a discrete quantity, and a determined quality, etc. And therefore elemental individual bodies have pores, which are openings, where there are hairs in animals and leaves in plants, and through them chaos enters and exits, just as light which passes through glass and water through openings, and from this chaos the elementals live and endure. The general trunk is from its roots, which are primary causes. Hence, just as it is from them, so it has the aptitude and nature that from it there should be secondary causes, such as fire and other elements, which are from it, and such as plant, man, bird, fish. Hence, just as it is of goodness, magnitude, and its other parts, so it is necessary that the secondary causes, which are from it, should be from it in terms of goodness, magnitude, etc., just as a plant, which is good and great, is of the goodness and magnitude of the trunk, and therefore one goodness is from

[Column 2]
another, and one magnitude from another, and so concerning the other natural parts. This general trunk consists in a third category, just as bread, which is from water and flour, in which it passes into a third category in this, that it is neither water nor flour, although it is from water and from flour. And this is the same for a plant, which is not the elements, although it is from them. Hence, just as the trunk passes into a third category to such an extent that it is neither goodness, nor magnitude, nor the other primary parts from which it is constituted: so specific trunks or stems existing in potentiality within the general trunk pass into another species and into another category when a natural agent touches the general trunk through the way of generation, just as the vegetative power, which vegetates bread into flesh by transmuting the matter of bread under another species. This trunk is a substance by reason of its substantial parts, from which it is aggregated, or composed, namely, of substantial goodness and of magnitude, and others, and it is subject to the accidents of its parts. Hence, just as substance is made or constituted from substantial parts, so in it is constituted an accident from several accidents, namely, of the quantity of goodness and magnitude, and of the others, from which one general quantity is made, and composed of simple quantities and passed into a third category, from which specific quantities existing under species pass into another category, such as the quantity of a horse, an apple, or an ox, and this transition occurs through natural agents by way of generation. Therefore, the universal trunk is aggregated from substantial and accidental parts.
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