P R E F A C E .

It is answered that this would be true if the same measure and equally disposed matter remained, but this is not the case, because time passes swiftly and does not return as the same individual literally "same in number", but only as the same in species meaning the "type" or "kind" of thing returns, but not the specific person or object. And it can be said that today’s dissolution original: "resolutio"; the process of a body breaking back down into its basic elements is not the same in number as the dissolution that occurs after a thousand or four hundred years, because motion is a successive being a philosophical concept where an entity exists only through a sequence of parts, like a flame or a river, rather than all at once.

It is questioned secondly whether a single animal can be perpetuated forever. And it seems that it is so, because it is possible to find some complexioned body original: "complexionatum"; a physical body formed by a specific "complexion" or mixture of the four elements in which the elements are reduced to a mean a midpoint or a middle proportion. Since all corruption decay or death comes from the action of a contrary Aristotelian physics taught that things decay because the qualities within them—like hot and cold—fight one another, and if those contraries are perfectly balanced at the highest degree, they therefore do not destroy one another.

But that this is possible is proved thus: because where there is a "greater equal" and a "lesser equal," there must be an absolute equal the author is using a mathematical analogy: if you can have something slightly more than equal and slightly less than equal, a point of perfect equality must exist in between.

I say that it is not possible to grant this, because that which is a mixture any physical substance made of elements is moved by the nature of the predominant element—that is, the influence of the heavens. But to the argument "where there is a greater and lesser equal," etc., respond that this is only true insofar as a functional equality suffices, and as far as it is possible for nature. Therefore, a mixture that is equal in moisture according to proportion justice: original "iustitiam"; in this context, it refers to the "right" or "just" proportion of qualities required for a specific species must be posited, but one cannot grant a perfect equality according to the mass original: "quantitatem mobil." of the elements, because earth always predominates in most mixtures. Stated otherwise, assuming that such a mixture...