Iacobi Acontii Tridentini de methodo, hoc est, de recta investigandarum, tradendarumque artium, ac scientiarum ratione

For to know, for example, who the inventor and founder of Rhetoric was, and other things of that kind, matters little. But we understand what a thing is if, first, the meaning of the name with all ambiguity and obscurity removed, and then the nature of the thing itself, has been perceived by us.

Furthermore, they make four kinds of causes: Matter, Form, Efficient, and End.

We call Matter the substance that which receives forms, both that which comes through the aid of nature and that which is made by artifice. That which receives natural forms is either simple and unmixed, or composite. Aristotle calls the simple "first" because as most think it receives the forms of the primary bodies which are called elements. The composite consists of four elements, by whose temperament all other things are generated. Matter is also said to be that from which something is made or born, as cloth, from which a garment is made: just as a house is from bricks, stones, wood, and lime; or statues from bronze, wax, or lead.

Of forms, some are natural, such as that of a man, a horse, or a lion; some are artificial, such as statues; some arise partly from art and partly from nature, which kind are fruits that grow on a tree...