Second Part
The Rules Applied to Light
Rule BIn this part we apply the ten Rules or Questions to light following the mode used in the second part of the first distinction. And now we begin with the first Rule.
The first Rule is signified by B. and deals with possibility.
1. We ask: "Does the light of a candle generate light in a lamp without decreasing itself?
We answer that it does, because if candlelight did not generate lamplight from itself it would produce it artificially and it would not belong to the same genus as lamplight, which is impossible; and candlelight visibly produces lamplight without diminishing itself or decreasing in quantity.2. Given that candlelight, which is less powerful than an Angel, can produce lamplight, we ask whether an Angel can generate another Angel? And the answer is that it cannot, because an Angel does not have discontinuous matter, its matter cannot reproduce, whereas candlelight has secondary matter under prime matter, and this secondary matter exists due to the transition of prime matter into lamplight by way of generation.
3. We ask whether candlelight moves on its own. And the answer is that it does because light exists invisibly and potentially in the wick and wax and visible light brings it into act by generating its species and exhausting itself in its upward movement where it transmutes itself into the species of smoke, as we see.
4. We ask whether candlelight illuminates air within its own essence, and the answer is that it does, because fire's essential illuminating power illuminates air in fire's innate illuminable part, and the illuminating quality does not belong to air itself but air appropriates it from fire; now illumination could only be air's own quality if it did not receive it in and from the illumination that is proper to fire.
5. We ask whether a lit candle transmutes the transparency of air into its own light while the transparency of air still remains what it is, and the answer is that it does: now, as imagination internally reproduces likenesses of outwardly sensible beings which still retain their own identity, so does candlelight internally transmute the transparency of air into brightness while the transparency retains its identity.
6. We ask whether candlelight is joined to the power of sight in viewing colored things, and we answer that it is not because they do not have the same proper subjects, although they work together like an agent with its instrument when the power of sight attains illuminated and colored objects through illuminated air.
7. We ask whether candlelight vegetates the light of the lamp it lights, and the answer is that it does not, since candlelight and lamplight are purely elemented bodies in which vegetation cannot be sustained because of excessive motion and heat.
8. We ask whether the four elements exist in act in candlelight, and the answer is that they do, in order to constitute a full three dimensional body comprised of its own form and matter wherein the elemental accidents are sustained.
9. We ask whether lamplight is lit by candlelight through necessity or by contingency, and the answer is given in two distinct ways: now inasmuch as candlelight lights lamplight, it does so by natural causation; but it does so by contingency inasmuch as the artificer does not naturally light lamplight with candlelight but rather does so through contingency occasioned by need.
We solved the above questions with the first general Question which is "Whether?" and we followed its conditions, namely that things are to be affirmed or negated as the soul remembers, understands and loves them more; here we see the general nature of the said Rule with its conditions.