Preface

...the falsehood is clear, because the species is perpetual original: "species est perpetua"; the idea that while individuals die, the category or "kind" (species) exists forever in nature.. I say that when this or that individual is generated, the specific nature is then generated under this designated being and in part, even though it is not generated according to its entire scope. For this reason, note that nature works secretly in universals A "universal" is a general concept, like "humanity," as opposed to a "particular" like a specific person., as Gilbert Porretanus Gilbert de la Porrée (c. 1070–1154), a famous scholastic philosopher and theologian. says in his Six Principles in the first chapter (specifically the chapter on form). And because nature intends to produce a "manly nature"—that is, humanity in general, or the horse—and yet it produces a particular individual, such as a strong man, this happens because it finds certain matter designated in this specific place. Therefore, if it found all of nature at once, it would produce every human at once; but because it finds only a portion of the menstrual fluid Medieval biology held that the mother's menstrual blood provided the material substance for the child's body. of this or that woman, it therefore produces this particular human.

The reason why these animals, and especially humans, do not endure according to the same nature, matter, and number is stated in the second book of On Generation and Corruption A treatise by Aristotle on how things are born and how they decay.. Things whose bodily substance does not endure, but is corruptible, could not repeat as the same individuals in number. But because the substance of a human, taken according to the principles of the individual, is corruptible, the individual generation of a human is cast aside Meaning the individual passes away to make room for the next.; for which reason the generation of humans will not be eternal in number. Nevertheless, the generation of humans is the most perfect. This is proved thus: because man is the noblest creature, which is clear from the intention of the Philosopher Aristotle in many places, and especially in the second book of On the Soul. For the more operations Actions or functions. a thing has, the nobler it is; and man is separated from the number of other living things by his intellectual reason, as is clear in that same text.

This is also the intention of all the Philosophers, especially Boethius in the second book of The Consolation of Philosophy, where he says that humans are like God in their mind. This is also clear in these matters because motion takes its nature and species from its goal terminus ad quemThe "end point" or final destination of a process of change.. Therefore, since human nature comes to exist in Socrates or Plato, or in any other particular existing human, the motion which is called "generation" becomes most perfect; it will be the most perfect among the generation of all animals. Furthermore, generation is a motion from non-being to being. Now, "being" is what is most greatly desired; and especially by humans, because here among all mo...

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