Excerpted from Enumeration of the Sciences

Natural science contemplates natural bodies and the accidents that do not have being except through those bodies. And it teaches the things from which, and for which, and through which those bodies exist. Some bodies are natural, and others are artificial. Artificial bodies are such as glass, cloth, and a bed. And, ultimately, all of that is an artificial body, whose being is through craft and through the will of man. On the other hand are natural bodies, whose being is not from human craft or will, like heaven and earth, and the things in between them, like plants and animals.And the arrangement of natural and artificial bodies is indeed similar in this, that, just as in artificial bodies things are found which do not have being except through artificial bodies themselves, and things are found from which and through which and for which their own being exists, so too in natural bodies, although all these things are more evident in artificial than in natural bodies. For those things that do not have being except through artificial bodies are such as binding in cloth, and shining in a sword, and transparency in glass, and carving in a bed.

original latin

Res vero ad quas sunt corpora artificialia, sunt fines et intentiones, sicut pannus factus est ut cooperiat, et ensis ut feriat, et lectus ut nos a terra suspendat. Res vero propter quas sunt corpora artificialia sunt sicut vitrum ut in eo reponatur id quod exsiccari timetur.

Res vero a quibus sunt artificialia, sunt auctores et procuratores eorum, sicut carpentarius, a quo lectus, et politor, a quo ensis. Res vero per quas sunt vel existunt corpora artificialia, duae sunt in omni corpore, scilicet materia et forma.

Sicut etiam in vino; nam vinum est corpus artificiale, sed virtus eius, qua inebriat, non est sensata, nec cognoscitur esse eius, nisi per operationem suam. Et illa quidem virtus est forma vini et eiusdem constitutio, cuius comparatio ad vinum est sicut comparatio acuitatis ensis ad ensem.

Scientia autem naturalis facit scire corpora naturalia secundum duplicem modum cognoscendi in naturalibus: vel secundum quod ex eis est sensibile, vel probando quod ex eis est intelligibile. Et docet cuiusque corporis naturalis materiam, et formam, auctorem et finem propter quem est illud corpus. Et similiter de accidentibus illud docet in quo habent esse, et a quibus fiunt, et fines propter quos fiunt. Haec igitur scientia dat principia naturalium corporum et eorum accidentium.