LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part I

Mixture and Virtue in Chaos

2. We understand that the second species of mixture is divided into four simple elements which enter into mixture to compose the third and fourth species of mixture. This second species flows from the influence of the first, and exists with its own virtue and essence in the third and fourth, or else there would be no participation between the first, third and fourth species, which is impossible.

3. The third species of mixture is divided into four parts, namely fire, air, water and earth. The first part, we understand, is all fire perceptible to our senses. We sense that fire is diffused and enclosed in air, water, earth, stones, iron etc. and fire is enclosed and diffused to prevent it from burning up the other parts, for if fire were aggregated to the same extent as air, water and earth are, bodies could not be generated nor could the other parts resist fire. The second part is the air of which we all partake. The third part is water, namely the sea, all fountains, ponds and rivers. The fourth part is the accumulation of earth on which we dwell.

4. The fourth and last species of mixture is in elemented supposites, namely in the individuals of species in which the elements are mixed and compounded, as in men, irrational animals, plants and metals. The second, third and fourth species flow from the influence of the first species in which they exist and from which they receive being and virtue: they all exist within it like parts in their whole, and it exists in them all like the whole in its parts.

5. The first and second species are invisible and intangible. In the first, the essences of Chaos are equally within one another due to the maximal virtue of mixture. But this is not so in the remaining species, because their parts are within one another in greater or lesser proportion, so there is a greater division of mixtures and virtues, as for instance in air: now there is more mixture between the aerificative and the aerificable than between the aerificative and the terreificable, and the same with fire and water. This follows likewise in the third and fourth species of mixture: as we see, there is more water in the ocean than in the earth, and there is more fire and earth in a choleric subject than in a phlegmatic one. Now as each element depurates itself with all its virtue away from every other element, the second species of mixture and virtue is followed by the third species and the third virtue, and the third species and third virtue are followed by the fourth species of mixture where each element generates other elements. The same applies to elemental corruption, for when a supposite is corrupted, some of it remains in the fourth species of mixture, but the rest of its parts revert in due order to the other species of mixture. Now the part which remains in the fourth species of mixture is depurated in the first, second and third in sequence so it can be altered and become a new supposite.

6. Further, mixture proceeds between form and matter, given that elemental supposites are produced from both, and in all supposites the four elements are mixed together in the following way: fire receives the subject of earth, namely its matter and consequently its form, and in this way, as fire receives dryness from earth, it diffuses its heat into air along with its own subject comprising both its matter and form, and in this subject fire is the subject of earth through dryness; likewise, air in turn receives the said properties with their substances as it instills moisture along with its subject into water with the properties it receives as said above. The same process goes on as water enters into earth, and then again as earth enters into fire, so that the parts of the four elements never cease mixing with each other; and because each one has its own form and matter, all the said forms ceaselessly mix and are mixed through their own and alien matters, and consequently through themselves; and let us repeat again that because all the elemental forms in a supposite constitute one common form, and all the elemental matters constitute one common matter, the entirety of this common form is mixed throughout the entirety of the common matter, given that the said elemental forms are mixed, as we said, throughout their matters. Mixture proceeds in the vegetative and sensitive powers of animals in a way similar to the way we described with regard to elemental forms and matters; and we propose to say more about this further on.

7. As stated above, the parts of the elements all exist within one another; consequently, mixture proceeds between substance and accidents, given that substance is composed of form and matter so that the entirety of form exists in the entirety of matter and vice versa, and the entire active intense quantity of form exists within the entire passive intense quantity of matter, and as they are mixed and united in this way, as are the entirety of quality, relation etc. extended quantity is produced throughout the entirety of substance and gives rise to the mixture of substance with its accidents. From this maximal mixture, digestion proceeds and through digestion, virtue proceeds from substance through accidents, to make up substance with its accidents, and we call this kind of substance an elemented supposite.

8. Form is active by nature and matter is passive by nature, so that when both are joined together in some existing supposite, form never ceases to act, nor does matter cease its passive submission to the act of form; for if they ceased, their natural conjunction would be destroyed, which is impossible, and on account of this impossibility, form never ceases mixing together all the parts of the elements, and consequently it never ceases producing virtue in the compound, for each and every one of these parts has in itself the wherewithal to produce its own partial virtue, and as they are mixed together, as we described, one single virtue is multiplied, this virtue has quantity and quality and it proceeds according to the quantity of parts and of digestion among them, and the other accidents all follow the same process.

9. The digestion of virtue in elemental mixture proceeds as follows: a part of fire diffused through all the parts of the other elements digests for its own end, or appetite, the other parts according to situation, habit, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, time and place, and this part of fire receives all these things from above, namely from the first, second and third species of mixture into the fourth.

10. God sowed the seeds of species throughout the Chaos, because as He created the first degree of Chaos He disposed the forms and matters of each species in potentiality so that the mixture of parts accomplished in the first degree of Chaos instills itself and its influence into the other degrees, where virtue and mixture arise from the influence of the prime Chaos, from the properties of species and their dispositions within their own essences, and this virtue and mixture has quantity, quality etc. as previously ordained by God in the first, second and third degrees of Chaos and in the said species of mixture, as described above.