LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part II
10 Predicates

K - Quality

1. One quality extended through the entire prime Chaos is produced from the quality of igneity, the quality of aereity etc. and it is the genus of all the qualities in the third Chaos, and in the third Chaos it divides into species, namely heat, moisture etc. as well as whiteness, blackness and so forth. Hence, just as one universal accidental form is aggregated from many simple accidental forms, for instance, one universal quality from many simple qualities, so likewise it is divided into many parts, or accidental forms, whose subject is substantial form and matter.

2. In a colored supposite aggregated from many substantial parts all of the same color, like whiteness in snow, such whiteness, although it is intensely and extensively one, is nonetheless not present in its entirety on each punctual part, given that all the parts are not in the same place, which shows clearly enough that the single general quality in the prime Chaos is deployed in the third Chaos into many distinct parts in supposites like men, lions, olive trees etc. All these parts flow in from the pre existing prime quality and when they are corrupted in supposites, they revert to the prime quality of the prime Chaos, i.e. its common qualifying quality.

3. In the third Chaos, for instance in a wheat grain, the aerificative and its aerificable are the essence of air, and the aerificative is humidificative while its matter is humidificable so that the essence of air is qualified by accident to resist earth which is accidentally dry and apt to digest and mortify the essence of air, so that mixture and composition can proceed and destroy the rawness of prime matter; the same applies likewise to the other elements, and shows that the essence of substance does not arise from the qualificative and the qualifiable, but rather that the essence of extended quality springs accidentally from intense active and passive quality.

4. In a wheat grain, form gives being to matter so that it exists under form and so that both are the essence in this specifically identified grain, as form acts substantially while matter is substantially passive in making up the substance of this grain. But because matter needs to be moistened, heated, cooled and dried, accidental forms arise and accidentally exist in this grain's substance where they enter into one another, for as the elements interpenetrate, their parts also interpenetrate to give rise to composition. Hence, as form acts substantially and accidentally while matter is substantially and accidentally passive, as we said, substance is clearly different from quality and vice versa, which is to say that substantial action is form and substantial passion is matter, and that accidental action and passion arise when form acts substantially on substantially passive matter by accidentally heating, moistening, cooling and drying the matter.

5. Just as God, may He be praised and honored, gave to the power of sight perceptive virtue to perceive objects by looking at them, so likewise did He give active virtue to the form of fire so it can act on matter by heating it, and to the form of air so it can act on matter by moistening it, and so with the other elements, or else there could not be any generation or corruption, as without heating, moistening etc. form and matter could never be joined or separated; this is self evident.

6. One common quality was created in the prime Chaos, then specified in the second and then likewise in the third. For instance, a generative wheat grain's specific moisture and specific heat provide intense essence to the grains generated from its quality's entity, which is reproduced because the essential quality of the prime Chaos is instilled by generative virtue into this grain as it participates with substantial essence in generating a substantiated and qualified product.

7. In wine mixed with water, every part of wine and water only has the color of wine, and although the color of wine is more intense in some parts than the color of water, this greater intensity is invisible due to a maximal blending of the parts. Similarly, the moisture of air is more intense in the essence of air than in that of water, and just as the color of wine enfolds the parts of both essences, so likewise, the extended quality of Chaos has varying degrees of intensity in all its various parts, and we can see that individuated quality is more intense in some parts than in others.

8. The light of fire is perceived by sight, its heat by touch, and the dryness of earth when it is hit with a stick is perceived by hearing and touch which sense its hardness, just as taste senses the sweetness of an apple and smell senses its fragrance; all these things are accidental figures external to substance while they exist hidden formally within substance, and thus there is really more to qualities than what the senses can perceive.