Liber Chaos

N - Time
N - Time in Chaos
a.1. If we want to understand that time is something real, we must consider motion in the eighth sphere and in the Chaos to learn about time through motion, and thus we must know that motion, which exists through potentiality, habit and act, is better understood and habituated if time is something, than if it is nothing; and given that whatever is more intelligible and habituable convenes with being and its opposite with non being, it remains therefore that time is something real, or else ignoring something would convene with being and majority, whereas understanding something would convene with non being and minority, which is impossible and contrary to God's goodness, greatness, eternity, wisdom, will etc. which is also impossible.

2. Heaven did not exist, and now exists; a man who did not exist, now exists and a man who existed no longer exists. Moreover, adverbs like before, after, quickly, slowly exist so that if time exists, these words are truly written to stand for time as something that really exists; but if time is nothing, then these words stand for a merely rational notion of some non existent thing called time, and in this way reason cannot discern the real truth about this thing, namely something that is really nothing, and thus the said words would be falsely applied to time. It remains therefore that time is something real so that its description can convene with truth and not with falsehood and privation.

3. Duration is taken to describe eternity, and since duration cannot be as really, rationally and aptly described by time if time is nothing real, as it can be described by time if time is something real, time must be real so that it can be used to best describe the duration of eternity, and the likeness of time can signify that in eternity there is no time, or else God's goodness, greatness, will, justice and simplicity would be opposed to His eternity, which is impossible.

4. The first degree of Chaos existed before the second, and the second before the third, which is obvious enough, but it would not be obvious without objectified time, and hence, if time is nothing, the objective power is objectifying something false in order to objectify something true and in this way there is better agreement between something false and something true, than there is between one true thing and another, and since this is false, time must therefore be something real, so that from its influence and virtue, the intellective power can receive its object in a true way without falsehood, and so that God's truth be not opposed to His greatness and simplicity in the greatness of objective and objectifiable virtue.

5. Form and matter cannot interact without conjunction, nor can the beginning and the end be without the middle, nor the operative and the operated without operation; likewise, generation and corruption, mixture and digestion, cannot interact without time, and therefore time must be something real.

6. The generation and corruption of form and matter cannot proceed without the corruption of something, but if time is nothing, the said impossibility is lessened, but if it really is something, the said impossibility is greater, which is clearly obvious, because reason and time do not convene as well if time is nothing, as they do if time is something.

7. If time really exists, there is greater concordance between it and natural appetite; but if it does not really exist, the said concordance is lessened. Hence, it would follow that reason and something that does not exist, namely time, would be in greater concordance and proportion than are time, appetite and motion, which is impossible. Therefore etc...

8. If time really exists, it follows that present and past things can be better remembered, understood and desired than if time is nothing, which is clearly obvious, because majority is greater in something that is more remembered, understood and desired than in something that is less remembered etc. Therefore time is something, or else it would follow that majority convenes with non being, and minority with being, which is impossible.

9. If time is something real, every mobile thing is more greatly diversified from other mobile things through motion, but if time were nothing, then the opposite would follow and we would all exist in one instant with motion but without time, and consequently, existence would have a greater affinity with motion than with time because motion is real, and this is a self evident impossibility.

10. If time is real, the five universals and ten predicates are more real than if time is not real; this is obvious, if you know how to discourse through difference, concordance, contrariety, the beginning, the middle, the end, majority, equality, minority, affirmation, doubt and negation; hence, if time were nothing, it would follow that mere reason could make up for one non existing thing with some other non existing thing, but that created reality could not make up for something that does not exist as it cannot supplement it with something that exists but only with something that does not, and on account of this, there would be an inconvenience between creator and creature in the greatness of concordance between cause and effect, and as this is impossible, the opposite must necessarily be true.


b. We proved with ten reasons that time is real, and now we intend to clarify what time is and to show what things are not of the essence of time, as follows.

1. Time is that without which present things cannot be, and without which past things could not have been, and without which future things could not be.

2. And time is that without which adverbs such as before, after, fast, slowly, frequently, rarely cannot exist, and without which there cannot be any increase, decrease, alteration, privation, motion, potentiality, habit, position, act; and so with other things like these.

3. Without God, there can be no creation; likewise, without time, there can be no number of days, hours etc. But this does not mean that time is the efficient cause of number.

4. Time is an accident which exists so that many things can exist and move substantially and accidentally, like the first, second and third Chaos and all the things that were, are and will be in them; but this does not mean that what we call past and future time is anything real, but rather that it is merely a rational construct; because time is, so to say, a simple and indivisible point, invisible, always present, its subject is heaven, and as its subject is divisible and mobile only in its parts but not as a whole, time is figuratively and rationally described as something divisible by accident, but nonetheless, its real form is indivisible, given that the entirety of its essence is always present.

5. Just as the Sun instills its virtue but not its essence into things below, so does time instill its virtue and not its essence into distinct mobile things, so that its simple form, i.e. its essence, is neither corrupted nor divided; now just as sunlight lights up glass, so does time light up, for the intellect and reason, the things which exist in time in different ways while time remains ever the same, without distinction.

6. Just as an arrow moves through space under the virtual impulse of the bowstring, although the string is not in contact with it, so likewise on account of the influence of the virtue of time, diverse "nows" exist in its subject without any diversification of time, and this is because these "nows" are not of the essence of time, rather, they are accidentally instilled by the influence of the virtue of time, so that many "nows" are described by time, because the intellect, due to time, describes different "nows" and discerns between one "now" and another.

7. Stopping the Sun's motion would also stop the motion of shadow, and there would be no shadow if the entire center of the earth which stands in the middle of the firmament were nothing, and consequently there would be no number of years, days, hours and points in time, but time would nonetheless remain what it is; and supposing all this, we say that time would still remain that thing within which the firmament, the Sun and their motion all exist.

8. In God's essence, there is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the Father exists in the essence in one way, the Son in another way and the Holy Spirit in another way, without any diversity of essence, so that distinction exists only between the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit. Likewise, all created things exist in diverse ways in time without any diversification of time.

9. Time is indivisible and many distinct things exist within it which are not of its essence, although they are subject to it; just as whiteness is indivisible and exists in all white things composed of distinct substantial parts without any distinction of whiteness, and this applies likewise to quantity, which is indistinct in the genus, although the genus comprises a vast quantity of things belonging to distinct species. This shows that what we call past and future time is not time at all, nor is it of the essence of time. Rather, time is depicted and described figuratively by what we call the past and the future.

10. No mobile thing is time, although all mobile things exist in time; time cannot be altered, although we say that now is one time and just now is another time. But time is really one in number without any otherness, although reason accidentally appropriates otherness to time so it can make use of time, or else it would be impossible to deal with time, just as reason cannot deal with locus without a container and content. This fallacious reasoning apprehends time through the imagination by representing it in some mobile subjects whose present, past and future are imaginable. But things imagined in this way are not time, nor even parts of time.

O - Locus
O - The Locus of Chaos
a.1. Clearly, God is beyond the eighth sphere which contains whatever is sensibly contained, and because God is incorporeal, the surface of the eighth sphere cannot be contained locally. Thus, the outmost surface of the eighth sphere contains all that is within it, including all the loci present under the outmost surface of the eighth sphere. Now all things within the outmost surface are part of corporeal nature and must be contained, but not the outmost surface itself. Nonetheless, locus is real, or else there would be no difference between the emplacement of the outmost surface and the emplacement of its content.

2. In Godhead, the Father produces the Son without locus and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both without locus, while God's essence is present throughout all creation without occupying any locus, nor is heaven located in God. Hence, if locus is something real, the nobility of God's essence and the simplicity of the persons in the immensity of essence are more clearly apparent than if locus is not anything real; and as God's greater apparition to the human intellect convenes with being, with goodness and bonifying, greatness and magnifying etc. locus must be something real.

3. Surely, reason cannot think about the container and the content without an objective locus, just as a man without eyes cannot judge colors. Hence, if locus were nothing, reason would make judgments about things contained in non existing things, and non existing things could effectively influence reason, which is impossible, and therefore locus is something real.

4. If locus exists, so do the locificative, locificable, locating and located; and if locus were nothing, only reason would be locificative and nothing would be really locificable, and the container and the content would agree more with reason than with reality or with the nature of locus, which is impossible.

5. Form wants to have matter in itself and vice versa, and the elemental parts want to be in each other: for instance, fire wants to be in air, water and earth and conversely, so that mixture, digestion and composition can proceed from them as each element seeks its own locus, namely its own sphere toward which it moves like a man seeking his homeland or an animal seeking its territory, and if locus were nothing, natural appetite would be as great on account of something non existent, as it is great on account of something that really exists, which is impossible.

6. The prime Chaos is situated in the four essences, namely igneity etc. and conversely; and in the second Chaos which was situated in the first, one species exists in one locus and another species in another locus, and the third is also in the first. In the third, one substantial part is situated in another, and one accident in another, as well as substance in its accidents and conversely, like color in wine and wine in color. Likewise, both active and passive intense quantity are present in the quantity extended throughout the entirety of substance, quality etc. and conversely. Hence, locus must necessarily exist, or else, without locus and without its natural influence there could be no positioning; and without locus, the third Chaos could not receive influence from the first, nor could the first instill itself into the third, since parts cannot enter into one another without locus. The preposition "in" is as necessary to locus as "now" is to time, and so, just as "now" is nothing without time, so likewise "in" is nothing without locus, and since "in" exists, as shown above, locus also exists.

7. Further, if locus exists, reason can better deal with "in" by referring to something that exists rather than to something non existent. But if locus is nothing, then quite the opposite must follow, which is an impossibility.

8. Further, if locus exists, one supposite can be in one locus and another supposite in another locus, better than if locus were nothing, and the same can be said about a container with its content, and about other similar things etc.

9. Supposing that earth were removed and annihilated from the midst of air, locus would still necessarily be something; for instance, if a vase were entirely emptied of its content, locus would still exist in it. Hence, if the total removal of water and earth from the midst of air were to leave a locus like an empty vase ready to collocate something, then all the more, locus would have to exist on its own, or else locus would have been created not by creating something but by depriving something, which is impossible.

10. The form of the soul is in its matter, and conversely, without locus; the intellective is in the intelligible, and conversely, without locus; and the same applies to memory and will. Hence, if locus were nothing in corporeal things, containers and contents would not be more proportioned to corporeal things than to spiritual ones, which is impossible, and this shows that locus is something real.


b. We spoke about locus and proved that it is something real, and now, we will see what the essence, situation and existence of locus are.

1. The subject of locus is the eighth sphere of the firmament with all the things physically contained in it and under it; and just as wine is a subject of color, so are all bodies subjects of locus. Locus is what enables the container and the content to exist, and one part to exist in another part, like form in matter and conversely, and the elements in one another, and accidents in one another, like heat in moisture and conversely, and substance in accidents and conversely. This is what we investigate and designate as locus, and this locus is simple per se, it is immobile, invisible and unimaginable.

2. The third Chaos is located in the prime Chaos, and the third is divided by accident, as the subjects of loci are clearly divided so that many supposites exist in many loci. Just as the light in glass penetrated by solar rays is located in sunlight without any surface dividing the light, so likewise, all things located in the third Chaos are terminated and contained in the locus of the prime Chaos, without any surface separating the prime Chaos from the third, given that the locus of the prime Chaos is indivisible. But in the third Chaos, locus is divided by accident, due to the numerous individuals that are subjects of locus in the third Chaos.

3. In every elemental supposite, form is in matter and conversely, and one accident in another, and substance is in accident and conversely, without any surface separating form from matter, or one accident from another, or substance from accident. Likewise, no surface separates one form from another, or one matter from another, while one form exists under four forms and one matter under four matters and four forms. The same applies to the parts of these forms and matters, where no surface separates one part from another: as for instance when fire, air, water and earth all blend into one supposite. Clearly, blended substance is located in itself, and its parts exist within each other, undivided by local surface. Hence, the locus of all substance is located in the third Chaos without any surface separating the universal locus from particular loci. And the entire universal locus accidentally transits through all particular loci as the prime Chaos flows into the third, like firelight in a room shines through the air and the atoms of air contained in the room, without any surface separating the light in one atom from the light in another atom.

4. Where wine and water are mixed together, there is no surface between the two, or else their parts would not be within one another. Consequently, there would be no mixture of their essential parts, namely their form and matter, but only of their integral parts. In a sack of wheat, we see a mixture of integral parts, as there is surface between one grain and another; but wine and water cannot mix in this way; and this shows that the prime Chaos is in the third and conversely, without any surface between one locus and the other, although there is surface between one supposite and another. Now the reason why there is no surface between the locus of the prime Chaos and that of the third is that the prime Chaos exists throughout the entirety of the third, just as prime matter is essentially, virtually and locally present everywhere in second matter.

5. In a vase full of wine there are two surfaces, one belongs to the wine and the other belongs to the vase, so that the wine and the vase are two distinct and separate supposites, and hence the wine is not in the essence of the vase, nor vice versa, because then the surface of the wine would be inside the surface of the vase and vice versa, and also the form, matter and quantity of the wine would be inside the form, matter and quantity of the vase and vice versa, which is quite impossible, and clearly shows that the wine is not in the locus of the vase nor vice versa, as each substance has its own locus to which it is subject. The wine is the subject of its own locus, color and quantity; and the same with the vase. But the subject common to the loci of both the wine and the vase, is the locus of the prime Chaos which exists throughout the entirety of the wine and the entirety of the vase, like universal nature in its particulars.

6. Just as glass is colored accidentally by the color of wine in a vase, so from the essence of locus in a supposite and from the essence of this supposite in the prime Chaos, locus is individuated and appears outwardly by accident in a figure. We see this in the container and its content, namely in the vase and the wine coloring the glass of the vase: just as this color is not proper to the glass, so likewise, locus is not proper to the container and the content, but the proper locus of the container and the content is in the prime Chaos.

7. Just as time is described by the present, past and future, so is locus described by the preposition "in" in the container and the content, and just as time is not of the essence of any present, past or future supposite, although the present, the past etc. are subject to time: so likewise, neither "in", nor the container and its content are of the essence of locus, although they are subject to it. Reason intentionally deduces locus from the things it uses to describe it, and we say that this kind of locus is really nothing but a merely rational construct; but the locus we call real is the one we discovered as shown above.

P - Situation
P - The Situation of Chaos
a.1. The situation of the first degree of Chaos is made of igneity etc. which are the essences of Chaos, as the ignificative ignificates the ignificable of its own essence and of other essences, namely air etc. and likewise, the aerificative aerificates, and likewise with the others, so that the four simple forms are one common form of the Chaos and the four simple matters are one simple matter of the Chaos, while this Chaos exists as one substance composed of one form common and universal to all particular forms, and one matter common and universal to all particular matters.

2. One compound quantity composed of the quantities of igneity, aereity, aqueity and terreity and extended throughout the entirety of the substance, relation, quality etc. of the Chaos, was created and situated in the first degree of Chaos. Now this quantity is universal to all the quantities of the third Chaos, and the same applies likewise to the situation of relation, quality etc. in the first Chaos, and this situation is universal to all the situations in then third Chaos.

3. In the prime Chaos are situated in potentiality all the forms and matters that are to be in act in the third Chaos and whose substantial and accidental subject is the prime Chaos , so that the universal form is the subject of all particular forms and the universal matter is the subject of all particular matter, as is universal accident to particular accidents, and thus when generation proceeds in the third Chaos, then whatever is to be brought into act transits through the third Chaos as one supposite generates another from itself and from the first Chaos communicating itself to the third.

4. Causal seeds are seeded and habituated in the prime Chaos, namely the species which God created in the prime Chaos and which He created by creation and then brought to act in the second by creating the first man, the first lion, the first eagle, the first olive tree and things like these, so that through the second, the third is situated through the mode of generation in the first, as the first human generates the second human, the first lion generates the second lion and so forth.

5. In the prime Chaos, the four elements are situated and instilled into the third where they are situated throughout the supposites they compose, and just as the prime Chaos is composed of the four essences of the elements and situated under one form common to the four forms and one matter common to the four matters of the said essences, so likewise, as the four elements flow from the prime Chaos into the third, each and every supposite in the third Chaos is virtually composed of and situated in one form aggregated from and situated in the four forms, and in one matter aggregated from and situated in the four matters of the elements. But there is a difference, namely that the composition of the first degree is crude and undigested, whereas the composition of the third Chaos is digested due to the frequent entering of its parts into each other, and therefore the simple elements are situated in the prime Chaos and in the third, as we said, since they are in confusion in the first degree, but as they flow into the third, they are depured of their confusion and the simple elements enter into the composition of the third, now in each and every supposite there is the simple form and simple matter of every element, resulting in one compound form and one compound matter composed under this form in every existing supposite.

6. The four elements are situated in the first and third Chaos, namely in the air we breathe, and in all the water that can be sensed, like oceans, rivers etc. and in the entirety of earth that we can sense, which is the center, as well as in the fire we sense; and all four of the said supposites, namely air, water, earth and fire, have the simple and compound elements within themselves, and each supposite has in itself its own simple form and matter as well as the simple form and matter of each of the others. Therefore the four simple forms situate one compound form and the four simple matters situate one compound matter, and each of the four parts of the elemented sphere is composed of these.

7. The four spheres of the elements are situated in the first degree of Chaos, the upper sphere belongs to Air, the uppermost to fire, the lower sphere belongs to water and the lowest to earth, these spheres are circular, and fill the entire concave space which exists beneath the lunar globe, and because every element is present throughout every other in the entire Chaos, the entire Chaos is mixed and diffused and hence each essence of each sphere is accidentally present throughout the essence of every other sphere through all of the Chaos, since the subject of the said four spheres consists of the simple elements blended with the utmost subtlety throughout the entire Chaos.

8. In the third Chaos, the elements are ranked and situated by degrees, as we see in pepper, in which fire is in the fourth degree, earth in the third, air in the second and water in the first, where each degree exists in every other degree so that all the parts are blended under one common form and one common matter to denote that the spheres of the elements are all within each other, so that the mixed elements ascend and descend and natural appetite and natural motion are caused by their ascent and descent.

9. The four elements are situated within species distinct from themselves, such as the species of man, lion, eagle, olive tree etc. Within species, vast numbers of individuals are situated, in whose substance accidents are situated, and conversely; like color in the substance of wine, and conversely; and the circular, triangular and square figures in substance, and conversely; and accidents are mutually situated, as for instance color in quality, and conversely; and the collocator in the collocated and conversely, and likewise with other things like these.

10. The prime Chaos is situated in the third, and conversely; as the whole is in its parts, and conversely. And the prime Chaos exists in the third, like virtue within substance, or color through the entire inside and outside of substance; and like the sensitive throughout the whole vegetative, and conversely.


b. We just described how the Chaos is situated in the principles of substance and accident, now let us look at how the five powers are situated in the Chaos.

1. Four acts are situated in the vegetative, namely: attraction, retention, digestion and expulsion. These four acts were created in the prime Chaos where the ignificative seeks its own ignificable, and seeks to heat air, to receive dryness from earth and to mortify coldness in water; these principles are at the origin of the appetitive, retentive, digestive and expulsive powers in the third Chaos, following in order from the second Chaos, where these four powers make up the vegetative power in which the four said powers and the four said acts are situated, in plants, animals and metals.

2. The sensitive power was created in the prime Chaos, its acts were situated in the second Chaos and introduced from the second and first into the third as the acts of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. This power is the sensitive form in which the five senses are situated, and it is in turn situated in the vegetative power, like light in fire, as the vegetative is sensed and subjected to the sensitive while the sensitive is a substantial form which apprehends corporeal things so that the supposite aggregated from the sensitive and the vegetative senses things actively with the sensitive just as it senses them passively with the vegetative, as we see in a lion who senses color by seeing it and who also feels hunger by sensing its own vegetative, in its own substance which is passive inasmuch as it can be sensed by the sensitive power, which is entirely active and free of passion.

3. The imaginative is situated in the sensitive in the third Chaos; it had been created in the prime Chaos as a faculty causing animals to imagine the things they need. In man, this imaginative power is situated below the rational power and above the sensitive power, so that objects absent from the senses can be imagined by the imaginative and represented to the intellect which then measures the sense objects. We understand that the imaginative power arises through generation, so that there is a greater natural relation between the father and the son, and so that the Son of God as a Person can participate to the utmost with human nature through incarnation as He received the imaginative along with the other five senses from his blessed Mother throughout the entirety of the vegetative, sensitive and imaginative, making Him a perfect man.

4. Further, the soul desires the resurrection of the body all the more, since the imaginative deals with corporeal things and not with intellectual ones; and given that each and every human is due to resurrect with his own body, the imaginative of each human must be conserved habitually in the prime Chaos.

5. The rational power was created in the third Chaos, but only in man. It is situated above the vegetative, sensitive and imaginative. This is because the vegetative, sensitive and imaginative are rationalized - so to say - when they make up one supposite together with the rational power, and these powers are situated in this supposite so that the supposite is composed of a body and a rational soul situated in itself and in its essences, namely in essential memory, essential intellect and essential will from which the soul is produced, as we showed in previous writings that deal with S.

6. The motive power is situated in the prime Chaos, as the ignificative moves its ignificable, the aerificative moves its aerificable and so with the other elements. This is the universal motive power under which Chaos is aggregated and composed; and so it follows that as universal form moves in universal matter, i.e. in prime matter, it moves all the natural forms that rule over the secondary matters situated in the third Chaos.

7. The motive power is likewise situated in the third Chaos, as active form moves passive form in supposites, and as one supposite generates another when the third Chaos moves itself toward the first by receiving influence from it, and conversely, as the first communicates itself to the third.

8. Likewise, the motive power in man in the third Chaos is situated in four powers, namely the vegetative, sensitive, imaginative and rational. Each power exists in all the others throughout the entire rational power while the latter moves the others, so that the sensitive moves sensibility within itself, to enable generation and corruption in the vegetative, and likewise the imaginative is moved by the rational to imagine objects, as the rational moves the sensitive so it can sense and move the body, and so forth.

9. Intrinsic and extrinsic operations are situated in the Chaos, and they are situated likewise in the situation of Chaos in the green, red and saffron triangles. This is clearly evident as F.G. discourse through the terms of T.

Q - Habit
Q. The Habit of Chaos
a.1. The Chaos has a dual habit and situation: substantial, and accidental. It is substantial, because in igneity, the ignificative and ignificable are mutually habituated under the substantial being of fire, and the same applies to the aerificative and the aerificable in aereity, and so with the others. It is accidental because the ignificative has its ignificable in aereity, aqueity and terreity, and the same with the aerificative and the others, and therefore fire, air etc. are mutually habituated by accident. Substance and accident are mutually habituated in the Chaos inasmuch as intense and extended quantity exists throughout the entirety of substance, as do the other accidents, and likewise, each accident is mutually habituated with every other accident in the Chaos, like quantity in quality and conversely, and action in passion and conversely, and this shows that habit exists in the third Chaos, into which it is instilled from the prime Chaos both substantially and accidentally.

2. All the species were created in potentiality in the prime Chaos and they were brought into act in the second, as for instance in the first human. All the individuals of the human species were habituated in this species when it was represented by the first man, and then they were brought into act as the first man begat the second, and the second begat the third and so on with the others, up to the present.

3. After death, a man's radical moisture is habituated in the Prime Chaos, awaiting the day of resurrection when it will come again into act; and just like the human species is conserved while some men die and others are born, similarly, every man's radical moisture is conserved between the Prime chaos and the third, so that just as it was in the prime Chaos in potentiality before any human had been generated, so likewise, after each man's death it reverts to habit in the prime Chaos, or else, the habitual specific individuality of each man would be destroyed if it returned to potentiality after death, but this is impossible because potentiality and being would convene with majority whereas habit and privation would convene with minority, which is an obvious contradiction and contrary to God's greatness and justice, for in this way, potentiality would have the first intention and habit would have the second intention, which is inconvenient.

4. The prime Chaos is habituated with itself, given that it is composed of itself; and its form and matter are mutually habituated, as form exists in matter and conversely, and as the form is composed of four forms, namely the ignificative, aerificative etc. and the matter is composed of four matters, namely the ignificable, aerificable etc. The same applies to the third Chaos, but only through the intermediary of God and of the prime Chaos, for the third cannot be habituated on its own without God's grace and the influence of the prime Chaos.

5. Due to his father who is in the third Chaos and due to the prime Chaos, a human son is in a habitual state whereas he was previously in a merely potential state in the prime Chaos, but once this son has been generated, he actually exists, brought forth from the habit in which he potentially existed, into act by the prime Chaos and by his father, as the father and the son now exist in the third Chaos where the father is one supposite and the son is another supposite; and the son, after his death, remains in a habitual state in the prime Chaos only, where he had been in a merely potential state, and this is because he has been brought closer to being and removed from non being through his acts during his life; however, this does not apply to irrational animals and plants, but on the contrary, these beings which had been in potentiality in the prime Chaos, no longer exist in potentiality, habit, or act even though their remains still exist, because this would be superfluous, given that they are not due for resurrection.

6. The prime Chaos has the third within itself and conversely, which can be seen as follows: Peter's son was in a potential state in the prime Chaos, and after Peter's conception, his son was in a habitual state with respect to the participation of the prime Chaos and the third in Peter; however, Peter's son was in potentiality in Peter's being, but when the son was generated, he was then simply in act in the third Chaos, and after the son's death, he is no longer in the third Chaos either actually or habitually but only potentially habituated in the prime Chaos while awaiting resurrection, as we said. Here we can see how the prime Chaos and the third are mutually habituated.

7. As we said above, in the prime Chaos there are causal seeds, namely the five universals and the ten predicates, while their individuals are either in potentiality, habit, or act, given that the prime Chaos and the third are mutually habituated so that both exist within each other as described above. Here we can know how the five universals and the ten predicates are mutually habituated through the mutual habituation of the prime Chaos with the third.

8. In the Prime Chaos and the third, intrinsic and extrinsic operations are mutually habituated in the following way: to generate a son, the father divides some radical moisture from himself and gives it to his son without incurring any decrease in himself while generating the moisture, just as the light of a candle is not diminished even though it divides itself when lighting another candle, and this is because as much as this candlelight produced in the third Chaos gives some of itself to the other lights lit by it, so much does it recuperate from the Chaos, so that this light retains its numerical identity by means of the conjunction of intrinsic and extrinsic work in both the third and the prime Chaos.

9. The prime Chaos and the third are mutually habituated by means of difference, concordance and contrariety. In generation, they are habituated through difference and concordance; whereas in corruption, they are habituated through difference and contrariety; this shows how the habit of the prime Chaos and the third exists in the beginning, middle and end, in majority, equality and minority, inasmuch as FG know how to discourse through what was said so far about the Chaos.


b. The way in which the prime Chaos and the third are mutually habituated was just described with reference to the previous things we said. Now let us look at the habits of the four powers, namely the vegetative, sensitive, imaginative and rational.

1. The powers in man are mutually habituated in the following way: the vegetative in man is sensed, imagined, rationalized and moved as it exists as a corporeal essence subject to the senses, imagination, reason and motion; now just as a candle is illuminated by the light of fire and the light of fire is illuminated by the light of the Sun, so likewise is the vegetative sensed by the sensitive, and the sensitive imagined by the imaginative, and the imaginative rationalized by the rational power, while the motive power is that whereby the powers move within one another in the being of one rational supposite, as each power has the others in itself as well as its own numerical identity in itself and in every other power, just as in an elemented being each element has its own numerical identity in itself and in the other elements, so that each element mixed with the others can all together constitute an elemented thing.

2. In man, the vegetative, sensitive and imaginative have the rational power as their first intention, whereas the rational has these powers as its second intention, and so the rational predominates, and the corporeal habit in man has the second intention, and his spiritual habit has the first.

3. The vegetative has appetite for its own vegetable matter which is of its own essence, just as the ignificative has appetite for its own ignificable as they are of the same essence, and therefore the vegetative and its vegetable matter are mutually habituated in a substantial way. But since the vegetative has appetite for the sensitive so it can live and sense things through it, the sensitive and the vegetative are mutually habituated in an accidental way, so that the vegetative, as it lives in an animal, senses things passively and the sensitive senses them actively through the vegetative which is its organ.

4. The vegetative needs the imaginative: now, as the sensitive fails to detect in its presence the objects that the vegetative needs, the imaginative supplies the things that the sensitive fails to perceive, for sensible objects are sometimes absent from the sensitive power, but remain present in the imaginative, which shows clearly enough how the vegetative, sensitive and imaginative powers are mutually habituated.

5. The vegetative and the rational are mutually habituated in the following way: the vegetative forms the body directly, but the rational forms the body by means of the vegetative which it moves to live and vegetate, to enable the rational power to exercise its acts of remembering, understanding and willing through it.

6. The vegetative and the motive are mutually habituated in the following way: the motive and the mobile arise in every elementative and every elementable through the appetitive, retentive, digestive and expulsive and through the sensitive, imaginative and rationative as they are all mixed in the essence of one rational supposite.

7. The sensitive has appetite for sensing its own sensible, namely the supposite endowed with senses in which the sensitive is mixed together with the other powers, as we can see in man, as said above; further, it has appetite for sensing a great many objects by seeing, hearing etc. And this shows how the sensitive and the sensible are mutually habituated, now the sensitive is a simply active form, and the entire supposite, or man, is sensible. Further, the sensitive senses a great many objects, for man senses things by accident, i.e. through the sensitive form which is also sensible, as it passively allows its sensing to proceed in this man.

8. The sensitive and the imaginative are mutually habituated because one power exists within the other, as when form in the sensitive senses corporeal objects and relays species to the imaginative so the imaginative can have these objects when the sensitive is absent, and supply the sense objects absent from the sensitive power.

9. The sensitive and the rational are mutually habituated as the forms exist within each other, while the sensitive lives in the supposite for the sake of the rational power, and not vice versa. However, the sensitive supplies sense objects to the rational so that the soul can remember, understand and love or hate; while the rational moves the sensitive so it can sense things and survive by sensing them, and so that while it lives, the rational remembers the sensitive and keeps it alive within itself; and as the body lives in the soul, so the sensitive senses things when it lives in the body.

10. The sensitive and motive powers are mutually habituated in the following way: the sensitive is moved by its five senses, and it moves the body which is subjected to its sensing action while the body passively senses heat, hunger, cold, thirst etc. This is because the sensitive attracts sensual species and places them in its own sensible, just like the active intellect places intellectual species in the possible intellect, and also sensual species, by using the imagination.

11. The imaginative is mutually habituated with its imaginable in the following way: whatever is sensed can be imagined, namely any sense object, and then, while it is being imagined, it is given over to the rational, and now the imagination is passive and the rational is active as the rational moves the imaginative and uses it to measure the triangular, square or circular figures under which the sense object is situated.

12. Likewise, the rational is mutually habituated with its own rationable, namely with its own recollectible, intelligible and lovable object which is God, and this object has the first intention; moreover, the rational has another rationable of its own with which it makes up one incorporeal supposite, namely its own recollectible, intelligible and lovable which are of its own nature, and this object has the first intention with respect to all other lower objects; and likewise it also has another object which is not of its own nature, although it is joined to it, and this is the body with which it is united so that both are one man in which the soul recollects, understands and loves or hates, and this object has the first intention of the soul with respect to lower objects, and the soul also has other objects which are external and have the second intention with respect to the other higher objects mentioned above.

13. The rational is a motive power as the recollective moves its recollectible, the intellect moves its intelligible and the will moves its desirable object. This virtual motion is spiritual and not local or temporal, it is incessant, substantial motion essentially identical to the essence of the soul; this is the motion whereby the soul moves itself and moves the body to live within itself, and the body lives and feels within the soul's being just as the sensitive senses objects as it lives within the body.

14. The motive power is habituated with itself, in itself; motion is aggregated from the rational, imaginative, sensitive and vegetative in man, in whom these five powers are blended to make up one supposite, which is man, and each power has the others in itself when they are blended.

Trusting in God's help, we explained how the five universals and the ten predicates are mutually habituated in the Chaos, and following the things we said about them in this discourse, the artist can make his discourse by placing these fifteen principles with figure T in the demonstrative figure by attributing the letters of the alphabet to them as follows: B stands for genus, C for species and so forth, and if he is skilled in discoursing, he will find the particular he seeks among these fifteen principles; but given that the demonstrative figure contains sixteen letters, fifteen of which have been assigned to the said fifteen principles, as we said above, there remains one last letter to be assigned so that the number does not remain incomplete, and we want to assign radical moisture to the letter R, which we now deal with as follows.

R - Radical Moisture
R. Radical Moisture
1. All radical moistures were created in the virtue of the prime Chaos, and their situation can be considered in five ways.

a. The first way is between the first, second and third Chaos; now the first was the matter on which the second lived, and the second is the matter on which the third lives. Radical moisture is a species existing in particulars whose subject is the prime Chaos, and this species can be sensed in its individuals, like stars in the firmament, while the prime Chaos is invisible and insensible like the firmament in which the stars are placed.

b. The second is the way every plant on earth has its own radical moisture in itself as it lives and feeds on all the elements, while the prime Chaos communicates itself to the third, which converts elemental matter and form to the matter and form of any given plant. This matter, with its own proper specific form and accidents, is the radical moisture generated from another plant of the same species as its offspring.

c. Third, there is the grafting of trees, for instance, when a branch of pear is grafted on an apple tree: now the radical moisture of the pear lives on the apple tree's form and matter, which its converts into its own form and matter.

d. Fourth, in the generation of animals, each animal generates from its own radical moisture another animal of its own species. For instance, a man begets a man without any decrease of his own radical moisture, in the same way that one light generates another light without decreasing any of its being and numerical identity. When one substance generates another substance, there is no decrease in the generating substance's numerical identity.

e. Finally, the fifth way is in the benefit that animal life draws from the four elements, for instance, when a man is born, he lives on the things he receives from the elements by suckling, eating, drinking, breathing, and the same applies to other animals.

2. In the prime Chaos, all species were created in potentiality and brought to act in the second and then in the third. Radical moistures were thus produced from the prime Chaos into the second, and are now being produced in the third, and these radical moistures descend from the prime Chaos without any decrease of the prime Chaos.

3. When a grain dies in the ground so as to generate many grains from itself, it has in itself a radical moisture received from the grain that generated it, and in turn, this grain divides its own radical moisture into a great many grains similar to itself, just as a candle lit by another candle receives radical moisture from the light of the candle lighting it without decreasing the latter, and thus each radical moisture grows to the perfection of its own being, and this growth takes place because the generating radical moisture transmutes into its own matter and form, the matter and form of the prime Chaos instilled into the third, just as fire converts into its own matter and form the matter and form of wood, and with more wood, there is more fire. When the individuality of the generating grain's radical moisture is destroyed, the essence of this radical moisture is conserved in the generated grains.

4. In a graft, one radical moisture is transmuted into another radical moisture while both remain distinct; that is to say, the lower and upper parts remain distinct as species, just as there is a transmutation of the radical moistures of a horse and a female donkey when a mule is produced, while each parent keeps its own numerically identical radical moisture; now the radical moisture in the upper part of the tree lives on the radical moisture of the lower part of the same tree and converts the matter and form of the lower part into its own matter and form, and so the essence of the lower part, as it ascends to the upper part, leaves behind its own form, because the essence is now informed by the form of the upper part so that the radical moisture of the upper part can live on the influx of essence from the radical moisture of the lower part, and as much as the essence of the lower part is transmuted into the form of the upper part, so much does the lower part recuperate from the prime Chaos flowing into it.

5. From the substance and accidents of a man and a woman, a radical moisture is generated in the womb of the woman as she conceives from the man, and this moisture which lives on the mother's matter in the womb is an embryo. Here, whatever was infused by the father and mother into the offspring is restored to the same parents by the prime Chaos as they partake of food.

6. In the human species, the embryo is generated from the radical moistures of the man and the woman, or else it would not be naturally their son. But the man's and woman's individual radical moistures are not diminished by this, rather, the man's radical moisture as well as the woman's each retain their own indivisible numerical identity, or else no human could remain in his own specific being as the same individual at different times, which is impossible.

7. Generated specific form and specific matter are received from the radical moisture of the man and the woman in whom they potentially existed, and just like one lit taper lights another with its light while still retaining its specific being, so the virtue which conserves the numerical identities of the man and woman is not diminished when generating a child, but remains specific to each being, namely the man and the woman, or else no human could have his own specific being and numerical identity, which is impossible.

8. Further, whatever the generating man and the woman recuperate from the prime Chaos to replace what they transmuted from themselves into their child, is ingested by them as nourishment. As they live on, they transmute the essence of the prime Chaos into their own corporeal substance on which the radical moisture of each of them lives, like light on oil, or a plant from rain and earth. Therefore, there remains a difference between the essence of radical moisture whereby a man has his specific being, and the essence on which he feeds and is nourished by transmuting it into blood, from blood into flesh and from flesh into limbs etc. as the parts of the prime Chaos enter into the third, which is clear enough when fire is produced by striking a rock against iron, with its own form and matter making up its own individual radical moisture, and the matter and form of the oil on which a flame lives are its own nourishing moisture; the same can be seen in the vegetative power in which there are four powers, namely the appetitive, retentive, digestive and expulsive. Now through the appetitive, each specific essence of radical moisture has appetite for the essence of its own nourishment digested for its sustenance; therefore the essence of radical moisture keeps its own specific identity by retaining the nourishing essence on which it lives, and once the radical moisture has obtained what it needs from the nourishing essence, it expels the latter with its expulsive power.

9. From what was said above, it is clear that the nourishing matter is not numerically identical to the matter of the radical moisture, now when it is stripped of its own form, this matter which exists under the essence of the radical moisture's form has another potential form, and this form is brought into act when the said matter is expelled by the expulsive power.

10. Supposing that one man eats another, it does not follow that the radical moisture of the eaten man can be converted into the radical moisture of the man eating him, for if a man's radical moisture were converted, it would relinquish its identity, and lose its purpose because God's justice could not exercise judgment on it; and hence, supposing that a man eats another man, the matter of the eaten man's radical moisture always habitually retains its own specific form, and will recover this form in act on the day of resurrection, or else God's idea would not be perfect. It therefore remains that anything divided in any way from this moisture is a part of the radical moisture, and even if a man eats another man, it does not follow that the eaten man's radical moisture is converted into the individual radical moisture of the man who eats him, but rather into nourishing moisture, and moreover, the radical moisture of the eater lives on the radical moisture of the eaten man, like fire lives on the essence of a lit candle.

11. Cold water is potentially hot. When fire heats water in a pot, heat comes into act and is increased by the said potential heat, and grows stronger until the water boils; likewise, when an embryo is generated, a small amount of radical moisture instantly starts to grow bit by bit until it becomes a complete human being. Whatever can grow in virtue and substance does not undergo any increase or decrease in its individual moisture after generation, and on this account, a son can be truly his father's son and truly human, because if he could be increased by another foreign essence not produced by the parents from which he was generated, he would neither be a complete child or a complete man, which is impossible. And just as all things in the third Chaos were previously created in capacity of the prime Chaos, so likewise, the quantity of the child's radical moisture grows by virtue of the radical moisture it received by way of generation, as shown above.

12. After a child's death, it would seem that on the day of resurrection its radical moisture will be made to grow by the virtue it originally had, and whereby it would have grown, had it survived, to the stature of a complete man. But this must be subject to the situation of its parts which were conserved by God's Idea and Justice.

Enough has been said here about the second Elemental Figure in which we had proposed to investigate the Chaos as far as we could, and so as not to extend this work into confusing prolixity, we made many suppositions, and whatever these may be, we know beyond any doubt that they can be tested in the second Elemental Figure by demonstration, if it is directed by figure T according to the rules of this art.

Here ends the Book on Chaos