It is probable that the power of multiplication present in the seeds of things flows from heavenly form as its efficient cause, rather than from elemental matter. For multiplication is an activity especially proper to light: from one ray of light almost infinitely many are poured out and multiplied without end. Hence the Sun, the immortal source of light, is also Nature’s first efficient cause of generation and multiplication. A very strong argument that every natural form receives its power of multiplying from heavenly light, of which it is a ray, is that form, endowed with its ancestral gifts, is luminous and therefore multiplying. It is luminous because its brilliance illuminates the sensitive and imaginative faculties in animals. From these two faculties arises a twofold apprehension and knowledge of things: outward through the senses, inward through imagination. All knowledge is light, just as ignorance is darkness. A certain illumination and clarity arise when images of things are apprehended, and what lay unknown in darkness is revealed through the light of acquaintance. For obscure things are disclosed by the gift of light alone. To the human being God added a third light, namely intellect, through whose aid a far more perfect knowledge of things through their causes is gained. All these effects are produced by the action of light and transparency flowing from the luminous soul. This last activity of light belongs to human beings alone; the preceding two are shared with the other animals, whose souls also participate in heavenly light. Reason therefore establishes that the power of multiplication in individual animals, and indeed plants, proceeds from the soul as it multiplies light. Certain rays of that soul are enclosed in the seed together with the ethereal spirit and hidden there until, with the rising of the Sun of life, they are at last made manifest.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF LIFE AND DEATH.

Light and darkness are the principles of life and death. For the forms of mixed bodies are rays of light, while their bodies are an abyss of darkness. Through light all things live; indeed, all life is light. Things that cease to live are deprived of light and swept into the underworld and ancient darkness in which they lay hidden and concealed before the fated wheel of divine predestination drew them into the light.

THE FORMS OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS ARE RATIONAL.

The specific forms of animals, and also of plants, are rational: not in the human manner, but in their own, according to the powers and character of their nature. For they have their own vital gifts, their own kinds of apprehension and knowledge, and their own predestined courses. The vital endowments of plants include the striving to generate their like, powers of multiplication, nourishment, growth, movement and sensation, and others of this kind. Signs of their knowledge are perceived in their skilful foreknowledge of seasons; their strict observance of changes as laws of Nature; their variation in accord with the movement of the Sun and Heaven; their fixing of roots, raising of stems, spreading of branches, unfolding of leaves and flowers, and shaping, colouring and ripening of fruits; their transformation of the Elements into nourishment; their breathing of life-giving power into seeds; and, finally, their establishment of the manifold distinctions of their nature and parts according to the wishes of Heaven and the soil.

That the forms of the other animals are endowed with knowledge is sufficiently shown by their mating and generation at appointed seasons; the due distributions involved in shaping and nourishing the parts of individuals; the distinct functions of those parts without confusion; the varied movements of their affections; their keen sensory faculties; the hidden spirits moving their limbs harmoniously as instruments; their capacity for training; their obedience and respect towards their masters; their instinct foretelling what is to come; religious observance in many of them; skill in obtaining food; and prudence in choosing dens, securing protection and avoiding dangers. There are, in a word, all the things suited to knowledge and reason that Nature bestows upon them. In any individual, however, Nature is nothing other than its form, the principle of movement, rest, action and life in the thing in which it is present. To it are entrusted the care, direction and preservation of its body, just as a ship is entrusted to a sailor.

Who will deny that times are predestined for things to be born, unless he imagines the nature of the Universe to be confused and disordered? Nature brings forth everything from her bosom in a definite, appointed order, for her Author has prescribed to her the law of order and the times of production. Conception, birth, life and death have their own times and fulfil fixed spans. Whatever came into the light or was taken out of it in this year or another had been ordained to do so. Nature, God’s deputy in the kingdom of the Universe, foreknew these things at the prompting of the divine Spirit, so that she might bring them about through her ministry. They do not happen by chance, but have a necessary cause, though hidden from us. Yet the supreme Governor of things is not subject to the law of necessity: he establishes it and changes everything at his will. He decrees concerning all things, even the smallest, and none of his decrees is disordered or uncertain. Thus the order that runs through the series and succession of things and times has its law of necessity from divine decrees.

THE RISE AND PASSING OF THINGS

Just as the individual parts of the Universe were potentially present in chaos as matter, and were afterwards actually separated and brought forth, so the individual beings of things are potentially present in the whole material World before they come into the light. From it they are to flow in their own time and order and eventually emerge into actuality. When they perish, however, they fall back into the universal mass from which they came, like rivers into the sea. Each nature returns to its own region, to enter Nature’s workshop again and again and be sent back beneath her anvil for new work. Perhaps this was the Pythagoreans’ transmigration of souls, rejected long ago because it was not understood.

CORRUPTION.

When a mixed body is dissolved and falls into ruin through the fault of its corruptible Elements, ethereal Nature withdraws to her homeland. Deprived of their ruler, the Elements become disturbed and confused in the dead body. Corruption, death and darkness then rule in the deserted matter, until corruption makes it fit for a new generation. According to its disposition, heavenly power flows into it anew and, gathering and mixing the wandering elements, kindles the feeble light of a new form. As the strength of the Elements is gradually reinforced, this light finally shines forth and completes a new mixed body.

GENERATION.