The Summary of Physics Restored

43From this it is clear that the ferment of alteration and corruption, and finally the fatal poison of death, comes to the elements and the compounds of this lowest region not from the opposition of qualities but from the infected womb and poisoned menstrual fluid of dark matter. Weak and insufficient form, not justly balanced in their first and radical union, could not purge this matter of its stain and imperfection. Scripture strengthens belief in this: we may observe there that our first parent was not created immortal in respect of his matter. To secure him against corruption and matter's original stain, God placed in paradise a tree abounding in the fruit of life, which he might use as a defender and deliverer against matter's instability and servitude to decay and death. After the fall and the pronouncement of the sentence of death, he was removed from its use and presence.