A R S P A R V A. The Little Art; often referring to alchemy or medicine.

has been gifted with the power of vegetation: the movement of which is more perfect, more distinct, and, as the Greeks interpret it, poikilōteros more varied/intricate. Contained within vegetation are attraction, retention, concoction, assimilation, and other movements of the vegetative faculty of this kind, which we call natural actions: concerning which Galen wrote most extensively in his book on natural faculties. By the same reasoning, the form of multiform things (which we previously said were called heterogeneis heterogeneous by the Greeks, that is, those that are not born solely from elements, but from mixed natures of elements) is more distinct and perfect. And the better these things are tempered, and the more elaborately mixed by nature, the more composite, distinct, and perfect a form they possess: and consequently, they have more numerous and perfect movements. For plants precede the elements in perfection and number of actions: animals, however, precede plants: and man precedes all these things: because of all things born in this world, he is the most tempered, most elaborate, and, as it were, nature's most absolute and perfect work. The end is that for the sake of which something is done: as a muscle for the sake of moving. The end, however, is the first of all causes, and the same is the last. The first, indeed, because in all things that are done, we consider this first, and conceive it in the mind. The last, however, because it happens last.