LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part I

Appetite and Causal Seeds in the Chaos

2. These seeds existed potentially in the first degree of Chaos, nor do they cease to exist therein, so they can sustain a ceaseless reproduction of species, or else no species would have any natural appetite for reproducing its individuals.

3. From the first degree of Chaos, as we said above, there is an influx of four simple elements, where each one divides itself through composition into species and then produces supposites with appetite for generation and corruption prompted by the causal seeds whereby the elements seek to enter into species, or else no element would have any natural appetite to arrive at constituting a species, or any preference for some species over others, nor could natural specification arise in the first degree of Chaos before arising in the third, which is impossible.

4. Everything in creation has a greater natural appetite for God than for anything else, and even though the elements have no intellect, they nonetheless have an appetite for God, as they desire to follow the rule that God gave them as He instills His own presence and influence throughout the second and third degrees of Chaos which must have in themselves all the seeds of the species arousing the elements' appetites before they enter into composition in any species, for otherwise the elements would not have more appetite for the end than for the beginning, nor would the final intention exist in nature before existing in a secondary principle, which is impossible.

5. In a grain of wheat, an ear of wheat potentially exists, this potentiality is disseminated throughout every part of the grain, and given that the ear must have more form and matter in itself than has the grain in which the ear potentially exists, the Chaos must contain some causal seeds harboring the appetite to reproduce species by means of the wheat grain, as the Chaos instills some of its form and matter, in equal amounts of form and matter, through the wheat grain, until finally the ear reaches its formal and material perfection, and all animate beings breed in this way.

6. In a field sown with wheat, causal seeds are ready to enter under many specific forms, like barley, oats, darnel, etc. if such grains are also sown in the same field; this shows very clearly that the field contains causal seeds in a state of confusion, where each causal seed seeks to exist with its distinct identity and produce things like wheat grains and other grains, so that the Chaos can instill itself through the grains into the parts held within its confused matter.

7. In a graft, a confused essence arriving from the lower part of the tree's trunk ascends to the shoots on the tree from which leaves and flowers proceed under specific form and matter, so that essence is transmuted from one species into another, and this essence's innate seeded parts had to be transmuted from confusion to specification before achieving specification.

8. And because the upper part of the tree cannot receive in itself all the parts held in the confused matter, it is very clear that a great many parts remain in potentiality and are not brought into act although they have been seeded and now exist as potential universals to parts which could be brought into act.

9. Therefore these things called causal seeds exist more in universals than in particulars, and have an appetite for being particular parts in species.

10. All this shows clearly enough how causal seeds exist in Chaos in the first species of mixture, then in the second, and from the second to the third, until they reach the fourth mixture; and the seeds exist in greater universality in one mixture than in another because some mixtures are more confused than others.