LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part II
5 Universals

C - Species

1. When the creator of all things produced species from the first degree of Chaos into the second, God was specificative, and man, lion, eagle, whale, apple and other things like these were specificable, and so were the other species in the third degree, as God specified the said species from the first degree into the second.

2. The first human etc. were specificable in the second degree of Chaos, due to the influx of the first into the second; and then the second human, the second lion etc. were specificable in the third, and so on through successive degrees until now, and thus we understand that species is something universal or common. 

3. When a branch of apple is grafted onto a pear tree, there is transmutation of the form and matter of one species into the form and matter of another species, and as the lower form and matter do not have a germ into which the vegetative power can instill the lower species, and given that virtue must ascend in the form and matter of the lower species, as this virtue receives benefit from the Chaos, then growth of the upper species is produced in the essence of the upper species because the upper species has the germ through which proceeds the virtue of the matter and form which make up the subject of this virtue, and this shows that the first degree of Chaos flows into the third through the species created by God in the second.

4. The heat of igneity in the first degree of Chaos whereby the heater heats its own heatable, i.e. the form its own matter, is a species universal or common to other instances of heat which are accidental to air, water and earth as fire heats air, water and earth by accident in the first and third degree of Chaos, and the same likewise applies to the difference and virtue which is universal to the difference between the heater and the heatable in the essence of air, and the same with the other elements.

5. Reason deduces the species of heat from many individual hot supposites, and then it deems that this species has no existence apart from the supposites, but when the memory remembers that the first degree of Chaos existed before the second, as the heat of fire in this first degree heats its own heatable as well as the heatable of air, water and earth existing in the first degree, then the intellect understands that the species of heat is something real, or else the first degree would not be prior to the second, which is impossible; the same can be likewise understood about difference, virtue, quantity etc.

6. In a similar way, reason deduces the species of wheat from many grains, and then it deems that it has no real existence apart from the grains, but as the intellect understands the distinction to be drawn between the first degree of Chaos and the second, it further understands that the beginning of species was created in the first degree and its end in the second, and that it is now in the third, and that the middle of this species exists between the first degree and the second, and then reason reasons rationally as it judges that the species of wheat is something real apart from its individuals, or else it would not have begun in the first degree of Chaos, nor would it have any medium consisting of the influx of the first degree of Chaos into the second and from the second into the third.

7. If species had no existing principles, its natural reproductive appetite would never have existed and species would only exist in the second degree of Chaos; thus the reproduction of species in the third degree would not be natural, which is impossible, and therefore species must be something real in its natural principles, whose end was in the second degree and is now in the third.

8. Vegetal species were initiated in the first degree of Chaos, the sensitive power was brought into the second degree through creation and joined to another power, i.e. the vegetative, and from these, species were produced such as man, lion, eagle etc.

9. From the first degree of Chaos flows a certain Chaos called the vegetative power comprising in itself four species in a state of confusion, namely the appetitive, the retentive, the digestive and the expulsive, all specified in the third degree of Chaos; and likewise, in the second degree of Chaos, a certain Chaos was created, i.e. the common sense comprising in itself five powers, namely sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. These five powers are distinctly specified in the third degree of Chaos where they exist in individuals of animal species.

10. As T discourses through the Demonstrative Art, it is clearly obvious that in the production of animal species from the conjunction of the vegetative and sensitive powers, the power of sight was joined to light, hearing to voice, smell to air, taste to appetite, and touch to the influence of species.

11. In the second degree of Chaos the sensitive and vegetative were so combined that animal species were produced from the second degree into the third by the generating agent, or else flesh would never be born from flesh, i.e. one sensitive power from another, but rather, the sensitive would transit from the second degree into the third without the vegetative and the sensitive would have to be created anew in every degree, nor would there be any transmutation from bread into flesh, which is impossible and shows that the sensitive-vegetative power comes from the generating agent.

12. When God the Creator produced the human species in the second degree of Chaos, He created a certain confused Chaos made of essential memory, essential intelligence and essential will, namely the soul, which He specified in the human species as form with regard to the sensitive and vegetative powers in the human species, and this form is called the rational soul beneath which the sensitive and vegetative powers stand while with its essential form it informs the form of the sensitive and vegetative and as with its rational matter it materializes the matter of the sensitive and vegetative, so that they are one supposite existing within the human species.

13. As the first degree of Chaos exists everywhere throughout the third, each species transmits its influence and reproduces its likeness outwardly, for instance a stone transmits its influence and likeness outwardly in the figure of coldness; fire transmits its heat and light outwardly; or an apple by way of fragrance reproduces its essence in a figure which proceeds from within its substance, and this must occur because the first degree of Chaos flows into the third, and with its influx it transits through all the species, and in its transit it extracts the likenesses of these species from them, like a ray of sunlight shining through blue glass produces a blue color on the ground upon which it shines through the glass.

14. Species is incorruptible, because it is always renewed from one supposite to the next, so that when one supposite is corrupted, another supposite is generated as the first degree of Chaos incessantly transits into the third and as the elements transit through one another with the likeness of one species into another, as we said.