Compendium of All Natural Science

[be forms] or privations of forms, and matter also be present, in which any transmutation may occur, those three principles of change should be intrinsic. In the composite and transmuted thing, however, no privation ought to be present. Both of these points we have proved by the underlying example. Let there be proposed to us, then, the transmutation of that bovine carcass into worms and little bees. It is clear that when a thing begins to be transmuted, that from which it begins is the privation of that extreme into which it is transmuted. Therefore, privation, form, and the thing—that is, matter—are required in that transmutation. The bees, however, which were produced from that transmutation, hold matter and form within themselves; but it is necessary that they have the privation, which was the source and beginning of the transmutation, outside themselves. The same thing will become more manifest in corruption. For if matter begins to be transmuted from that which is to that which is not, it will be necessary that those three things be present in that transmutation. For it is most true that the extremes are intrinsic. Therefore, it will be necessary that the privation, into which the transmutation ends, be intrinsic. But how could privation be present in the thing to be corrupted, since it [the thing] is no longer there when the end of the transmutation has arrived?

4. On form and privation.

It is manifest, moreover, that form and privation are not contraries. For the transmutations of all things occur from contraries. But although sometimes from contraries