LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part II
10 Predicates

M - Passion

1. We understand that the things said about substantial and accidental action apply in a relative way to substantial and accidental passion in the first and third Chaos, in both of which they are mutually related.

2. Substantial passion is prime matter: we see in the prime Chaos that the ignificable is the proper passion of the ignificative, and that the same follows in the third Chaos. Now the appetite of substantial passion is numerically identical to substantial prime matter, or else matter would not be pure passion but rather an agent acting with appetite, which is impossible; they must therefore be identical, just as the action of substantial form is numerically identical to its substantial appetite to signify that form, action and appetite are one identical substance and essence reflecting God's essence, which is one without a second in Paternity, Filiation and Procession without any distinction or passion.

3. Passive accidental appetite is clearly different from matter, given that air's matter has substantial appetite for air's form, it has more appetite for this action than for the accidental action of fire, and likewise it prefers the action of fire to that of water, and thus, accidental passion arises, as there is a difference between matter and passive accidental appetite.

4. Air's matter has no appetite for undergoing the action of earth, rather it hates - so to say - this action, and due to this hatred, the matter of air is accidentally active, albeit by means of air's form, which the form of earth hates, and acts against in air's own matter by drying it, which shows that action arises accidentally in matter, and consequently passion accidentally arises in form, and this is the original source of accidents in substance in the third degree of Chaos.

5. Generation follows matter's substantial appetite for its own form; but corruption follows matter's accidental appetite for an alien form, and this is because appetite is greater in proper form and matter than in remote form and matter, and the same applies likewise to the other accidents.

6. Proper matter, as it communicates itself to its proper form, is passive. We see this in the prime Chaos whose matter is passive as it communicates itself to the third, but when it communicates itself to an improper form, it is accidentally active in resisting this form, as we see when fire's matter in the prime Chaos resists water's form in the third Chaos, as in pepper in which fire is predominant, but if fire's form did not resist water's matter, it would not be as close to its own form; now if fire resisted water with its own form in a merely accidental way, there would be no substantial but only accidental resistance, and substantial contrariety would be destroyed, which is impossible; and there would be no substantial passion in corruption, which is also impossible.

7. From major action, major passion follows and vice versa, and consequently, mobile power is greater in substantial than in accidental passion, which shows that natural motion is intrinsic to substance, and is the substantial motion from which accidental motion arises.

8. Passion which has its own proper action - or form - has the appetite of this form, and as it has this appetite within itself, it has form within itself; therefore passion - or matter - which has in itself its own form with its action and appetite is complete and perfect, but when its form wants to act in alien matter, then matter falls into corruption right away, as its passion, namely its being and its appetite are diminished until it is entirely corrupted in the third Chaos and gives back to the first the parts of matter that return to the confusion of the first Chaos.

9. Passion is of two kinds: universal and particular. Universal passion is when a grain is corrupted, and passive under its own form and under the forms of the elements which corrupt it. Particular passion is when elemental matter is passive under its own proper form for which it has an appetite, and vice versa.

10. From the complementarity of substantial passion and action, substance arises and therefore form and matter exist to make up substance, but not vice versa. Therefore substance is neither passive nor active per se, but only inasmuch as it is a generating agent, or inasmuch as it is aggregated from substantial action and passion. Here, we note how the accidents of substance are in action and passion, which exist so that substance can exist, and not vice versa.

11. Whenever form is generated, it is passionable, and as it is generated, it is at once passionative and its proper matter is passionable, and thus we understand that both have one and the same identity, i.e. that of one specific supposite in which there is no cessation of this substantial action and passion, nor consequently any cessation of accidental action and passion; now as form moves itself in matter and as form moves matter in itself, accidents are moved throughout the entirety of substance and in one another.

12. Vegetal and sensible passions were created in the prime Chaos, and they flow at all times into the third, as for instance in a lion whose vegetated matter endowed with senses is aggregated from passion and appetite, and this passion and appetite are identical to its passive vegetation and sensation, just as they are identical to the passive parts of the elements of which the matter is composed and aggregated. This shows that substantial passion is the lion's matter composed of several - so to say - passive points of the elements, and of passive vegetated and sensed appetite, and this kind of matter exists under the form of a lion, which form is identical to action and to the vegetative and sensitive appetite from whose form and matter the lion is aggregated and produced in the third degree of Chaos; and when it is corrupted, the said points revert to the prime Chaos.

13. There is accidental passion in vegetated beings endowed with senses, as we see when a lion senses hunger, thirst, heat and cold on account of vegetation and sensation, and likewise when it senses things by seeing, hearing, touching and imagining given that the lion is accidentally visible, tangible, audible and imaginable.

14. In man there is the matter of the soul and the matter of the body, as well as the form of the soul and the form of the body; and in the matter there is a dual passion, namely substantial and accidental: substantial passion is when the body's matter is passive under the body's form and the soul's matter is passive under the soul's form, whereas accidental passion is when the body's matter is passive under the soul's form and the soul's matter is passive under the body's form.