Introduction to the Divine Art of Chemistry

with philosophy and theory, that is, the speculative. The practical, however, is that which is occupied with practical philosophy, that is, moral philosophy. Whence it is said in the sixth book of the Ethics that the speculative intellect is the subject of science and ignorance, but the practical is the subject of virtue and vice. Therefore, through the speculative intellect, one is said to be knowing and ignorant; through the practical, however, one is said to be good and bad. This is because the end of speculative science is properly truth, but that of practical science is work, as is said in the second book of the Metaphysics. Therefore, the speculative is in affirmation and negation, but the practical is in election and flight, as is evident in the sixth book of the Ethics. And in this way, the speculative intellect does not precede the practical, nor vice versa, but both divide the intellect equally, and are contained equally under the intellect. And in this way, the philosopher, having divided philosophy in its first division into active and contemplative, divided in the sixth and ninth books of the Metaphysics the contemplative, that is, the speculative or theory, and natural, mathematical, and metaphysical, which is theory. And elsewhere he divides the active, that is, the practical or moral, into monastic, that is, Ethics, Economic, and Political. But all others that are called practical are not called active, but practical, that is, productive. Therefore, arts are productive habits only, as is said in the sixth book of the Ethics. For their operation passes into external matter and makes artificial forms. And this seems to pertain properly to mechanical arts. Or they are productive, that is, ministering to nature, and the natural form follows, not the artificial, as is the art of medicine and Alchemy, because the health introduced through the art of medicine is not artificial, as is held from the other book of the Metaphysics. Because it is said there thus:

Some things are made by art and chance, like health, because in it is some part which is the principle of the movement of generation. Some are made by art alone, like a house, because in its matter there is no principle of the movement of generation, but in another. Because of which some things will be without the one having the art, like health; others, however, not, like a house.

Therefore it is said in his book of the same that the power of building