LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part II
10 Predicates

L - Action 

1. There are two kinds of action: substantial and accidental. The substantial action of prime Chaos is composed of the ignificative, aerificative etc. and it is the universal or common form which divides into individuals of species in the third Chaos. Accidental action of the prime Chaos is the action of the ignificative, not in its own essence, but in the essences of the other elements, and the same applies to them. This accidental form is universal to all the individual accidental forms in the third Chaos where it divides itself into individual accidents present in supposites where each element is active in the others, and this shows how action is divided in the prime Chaos and in the third.

2. The universal action of the prime Chaos, is form acting on its own matter so that each elementative acts on its own elementable; it is a universal motive power that moves all particular powers in the third Chaos, and hence, we also understand that there is yet another universal motive power whereby each elementative acts on the essences of the other elements, and under which all particular accidental motive powers in the third degree are moved.

3. The substantial form of each element is the same thing as its purely substantial action, but because this form, while it acts substantially on its own matter, also acts accidentally on alien matters, namely those of the other elements, accidental action follows accidentally, as we see in fire whose form acts on the matter of air etc. with its heat and light by heating and lighting it, and therefore the form of air acts by accident with heat and light on its own matter, as it acts on the entire essence so as to contain the matter. The form of air also acts on its own matter substantially inasmuch as this form is totally imbued and infused throughout the entirety of its own matter. And this applies likewise to the other elements, which shows that there is both substantial and accidental action.

4. Each element has a dual action, sensible and insensible. The insensible action is the one which can in no way be sensed by any corporeal sense, and this is the one whereby simple fire acts on its own proper simple matter resulting in a simple element; but the sensible action is the one whereby the entire supposite aggregated from the four elements is sensibly hot, or cold and so forth.

5. Substantial action, which is substantial form, is quantified in itself and in its own matter, and it is qualified by accident in other remote forms and other remote matters when each element acts in the others, as we see when heat accidentally acts on moisture, and so forth.

6. Given that the action of the prime Chaos is diffused throughout the entirety of the Chaos, it flows universally into the third Chaos, and its influx is received by the third Chaos in particular ways, because the third Chaos is distinctly divided into species and supposites. This shows that universal or common action is real, and that it divides itself as the third Chaos receives it, and disperses itself into the parts which come into action in the third Chaos.

7. In the third Chaos there is a certain agent which receives matter from the prime Chaos, in which there is likewise another agent which gives it. Therefore the prime Chaos, under the recipient's action, enters into the action and passion of the third, whence arises the mixture of both degrees of Chaos, as we see in a wheat grain generating many grains, when its form receives influence from the first Chaos and acts on its own matter as the first Chaos enters formally and materially into the form and matter of the generating grain, while the form of this grain acts by reproducing and many similar grains of its own species.

8. In the form of fire there is intense active heat with which form acts on its own matter in which there is intense passive heat, so that throughout the entire essence of fire there is extended heat composed of action and passion, and under it, fire is essentially present in supposites together with the essences of the other elements.

9. The action of the prime Chaos is incessant and incorruptible everywhere within the lunar sphere. In the third Chaos it is incessant but corruptible as some supposites fall into corruption, given that as a supposite is destroyed, its action is deprived of its individual being and reverts to the prime Chaos while the parts of the deprived supposite enter into the mixture of the prime Chaos, whence they later revert to the third Chaos under some other numerically different individual supposite.