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On the Elements |
Excerpted from Ordinatio II |
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Therefore I say to the question, in maintaining that which is opposite of either, that the elements do not remain in a mixture according to their substance, whether diminished (as the Commentator says) or not diminished, as Avicenna posits, whose reasoning is that plurality must not be posited without necessity: but nothing compels us to posit a plurality of the elements, or that a plurality of substantial forms remains in the mixture; because it is not an operation, which greatly conceals form, for it is not an operation of mixture, it is one of the same species of element with another operation; nor is it a transformation, for the form of the element and the form of the mixture have sufficient character, that one is the end of one creation, and the other of another: or just as the latter might be the end of corruption by someone and the former the end of lending many to someone. ...Ergo sicut nihil potest esse sub forma aeris et ignis, sic sec sub istis, et mixti, nec etiam qualitas mixti hoc cogit puta frigiditas carnis: quia illa non est frigiditas aquae, vel terrae. Item, forma elementaris nata est cum materia constituere suppositum per se subsistens in genere Substantiae: ergo si sint plures formae elementares in mixto, quaelibet constituet suppositum. Item, omnem substantiam corporalem consequitur quantitas, quae est propria passio substantiae corporeae; sed forma elementi, quantuncunque remissa cum materia constituit substantiam compositam: ergo ifsam consequitur propria quantitas, sicut passio propria, sed eadem propria passio non est plurium subiectorum: Ergo in uno subiecto erunt plures quantitates, ut alia quantitas mixti, et alia elementi: et ita vel duo corpora cerunt simul, vel quaecunue pars mixti, non erit mixta: et ita non erit mixtio nisi iuxtapositio. Item, mixtum generatur ex elemento, vel elementis, et corrumpitur in illa: ergo talis incompossibilitas est inter formam mixti, et formam elementi, qualis est inter terminum generationis a quo et terminum generationis ad quem… |