TREATISE I. BOOK I.

prime matter; because, clearly, things in potentiality are not placed after things in actuality, nor is the principle placed after that which originates from it; they therefore utterly reject this interpretation. Finally, they contend that the name Principle cannot be adapted to Place The author is arguing against the idea that "In the beginning" refers to a physical location. by a reason drawn from these words in the 1st chapter of the 1st Gospel of St. John: The Word was in the beginning; for to wish to include the Word of GOD in a place is believed to be an impiety by all godly men, since He is incomprehensible; and furthermore, even before the creation of the world there was no place, because there was nothing placed within it. With these, I say, and similar arguments, Paracelsus Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), a famous physician and alchemist. together with certain of his disciples, endeavors to refute the aforementioned opinion of the contrary sect. He takes the primordial words of Moses in this sense: In the great uncreated mystery GOD created the heaven and the earth, that is, in the first matter—formless, dark, and potential—GOD created the heaven and the earth. And this Paracelsian opinion does not seem to differ from that of the Peripatetics Followers of Aristotle., who, thinking the world to be eternal, established that prime matter was also co-eternal with the World itself. Some Philosophers also rise up against the creation of such Hyle original: "υλη" (hyle); a Greek term for the fundamental "stuff" or raw matter of the universe. with this argument: That which is formless is not created: But hyle is formless: Therefore hyle is not created. The major premise is clearly demonstrated by the fact that creation is an actuation, and the making of something out of nothing: But hyle in its nature is nothing in actuality, wherefore it is certain that it lacks all form. But referring all these ambiguous and controversial disputes of those Philosophers to my superiors in Philosophy, and to those far more learned than I in these matters, I shall at least descend to the description of that matter.

C H A P T E R IV.

MATTER, or the subject in whose womb that greatest Creator of our Macrocosm arranged his structure, is that Philosophical Hyle original: "υλη"; the Greek term for wood or raw material, used here for the primordial substance.; which the Physicists have called absolutely "first matter": of which, just as nothing is more common, so also nothing is found more unknown than it. Concerning its investigation, two among the other ancient Philosophers especially bestowed their studious labor: the first of whom, namely Thales (with whom Heraclitus and Hesiodus agreed), after long study and many sleepless nights, constantly affirmed that water is the first matter of things, and he confirms the reason for his opinion because, he says, the seed and nourishment of all things is moisture. Both Pagans and sacred writers seem to approve of this sentiment. For the former, for this reason, consecrated Neptune, Oceanus, and Thetis; the latter—among whom I name that divine High Priest of Philosophy, Moses—called that matter the abyss and water; and St. Peter in 2 Peter 3 indicated to us that the heaven and the earth were from water and through water. The other diligent searcher of this matter was Anaxagoras, who after many labors endured in this study, was of the opinion that the first matter of things was a rude and undigested mass, called Chaos, to which the Poet in his Metamorphoses Ovid. seems to assent. Other Philosophers have written differently about this matter: For Anaximander established infinite principles as the material origin, Anaximenes infinite air, Diogenes air endowed with divine reason, Plato an invisible and formless species, Zeno the Stoic the substance of fire turned into water through air, the Epicureans atoms, Empedocles the four elements; almost all of whom, on account of the hidden and concealed disposition of this mystery—which without doubt is truly and essentially known to GOD alone—wrote in opposition to one another, uncertainly and indeterminately, and whatever...