ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE MACROCOSM.

Whatever they [the ancient philosophers] conceived in their minds with vigor and probability, they immediately set forth in their books. This is something that Plato also seems to sufficiently prove in his Timaeus while he describes this matter as a thing perceptible without the senses, and scarcely believable by a spurious kind of reasoning; Plato uses "spurious reasoning" to describe how we try to understand the void or prime matter, which has no physical qualities of its own. for from these words it is clear that his knowledge in this matter is like a dream and mere imagination. In this regard, Augustine also seems to agree with him to some extent, as is evident from the following discourse:

When, he says, I conceive of something unformed, I understand nothing sooner than I understood it before; just as by seeing nothing, darkness is seen, and by hearing nothing, silence is heard.

Aristotle himself confesses the difficulty of knowing this thing, asserting that this matter can neither be known nor described by itself, except through analogy—that is, through examples taken from external qualities. Hence, he and other Greek philosophers likened it to hyle original: ὕλην (hyle). A Greek term meaning "wood" or "timber," used by Aristotle to describe the raw "stuff" or "matter" of the universe before it takes a specific shape., that is, to a certain immense forest, the wood of which is fit for constructing any house, machine, or other thing. For this reason, the divine Moses also compared it sometimes to an empty and void earth, and sometimes to waters and the abyss; Hermes Trismegistus in his Poimandres A foundational text of Hermeticism, often attributed to the legendary sage Hermes Trismegistus. compared it to a certain horrific shadow migrating into a moist nature; Plato to a mother, a nurse, and the seat of generated things, because it contains and nourishes all things; Augustine to darkness and silence, as has been said; Pythagoras to duality; Some to a mirror in which the soul of the world is discerned; others to wax and clay, which are fit for receiving any impression. There are also those who wish to compare it to an ointment, which is ready to receive and retain any scent. And it is from this that Plato called it infinite, namely because of its inclination toward infinite forms:

Although this matter could also be called infinite as far as we are concerned; for God alone knows how far this potential extends itself beyond the curvature of the world.

And Aristotle seems to understand this same thing in his book on the heavens and the world, where he says that outside the heavens there is neither place, nor body, nor dimension, nor fullness, nor time, nor number, nor measure of movement, and consequently that nothing exists outside the heavens except this unformed matter, to which the aforementioned properties alone are proper. Hence it is also that Hermes Trismegistus in his sacred discourse speaks in such words:

A shadow, he says, infinite in the abyss, etc.

We conclude, therefore, from all the writings of both ancient and modern philosophers, that this first matter is the primordial Being, infinite, unformed, in potentiality as much toward something as toward nothing; of no quantity or dimension, since it can be called neither small nor large; of no quality, since it is neither subtle, nor thick, nor perceptible; of no property or inclination, neither moving nor resting, without any color or elementary quality. It is, however, the first passive recipient of all actions and capable of containing all things. Whence it is called the mother of the world, in whose lap the ethereal orbs, decorated with glowing fires, and the four elements suspended below near the center, are contained as if in a maternal womb. Moreover, we have depicted in this place an imaginary likeness of this unformed matter—imitating the description of Hermes Trismegistus and the truth-telling Moses—under the form of a blackest smoke, or a vapor, or a horrific shadow, or a dark abyss, or finally a certain rude, undigested, and imperceptible mass.