Explanation of the Elemental Figure Bl. Raymond Lull

bullet1 6 - Elemental Locus and Motion 

1. So that the parts of the elements can be within each other through the virtue of locus and motion, locus and motion exist in plants in the fourth degree of fire, as well as in other plants; but the parts that go into the composition of a plant do not move in one another locally, rather, the entire plant is full of many parts as it exists as one body resulting from the mixture of them all.

2. Fire moves its heat in air, and consequently in the other elements; and air moves its moisture in water, and consequently in the other elements, and so with the rest, according to the order in their circulations; and hence in the motion in this plant, by means of its actions, there is mixture of the substantial parts which are the subjects of the accidental parts; therefore each of these parts, be it substantial or accidental, enters into every other part so that the plant has continuous quantity in substance and in accident; but this motion is imperceptible to the senses, because it is interior to the plant and not locally distinct in the same way as a thing that locates and the thing located in it are distinct, where the container is not the content and vice versa, but rather, here the motion proceeds because each essential part contains the others and is contained by them, to ensure a true mixture and union of the parts in this plant.

3. Given that a growing plant is mobile in the air containing it, the plant is also moving and mobile locally through the growth of its parts as on part grows into another within substance; now this local motion springs from intrinsic nature, so that the local motion inside the plant's substance is due to the virtue of the simple elements moving the compound within themselves; now just as a bow moves an arrow through the air virtually due to the impulse actually received by the arrow, so likewise and even much better and more virtually, do the simple elements move compound elements within substance, and as the compound elements compose compounds from themselves, and are themselves composed from the virtues of the simple elements, they move the elemented compound, and by the virtue of the simple elements, each element is present in the locus of every other element and vice versa,  like one part in another and conversely, while they move the plant locally and outwardly through the motion of growth; and this external motion can last as long as the regular growth of its quantity receives the virtue of the impulse initiated by its principles, namely the natural agent and the matter from which the elemented thing is produced.

4. Just as locus can be imagined, since one body can be a container in which another body is locally contained, so likewise, motion is also imaginable since bodies can move from place to place; but the inner motion of substance cannot be imagined in this way, because it is not local, given that every element in this plant is in the others and in itself and also moves the others in itself so that their parts are all within one another, and this kind of motion and locus in the plant has more intensity and virtue than the locus and motion the plant has externally, now the former are of the plant's substance whereas the latter are externally apparent figures of another species, and do not belong to the plant's essence.

5. A magnet attracts iron and moves it locally toward itself, while the magnet moves its virtue within itself in a non local way, as the magnet's virtue does not move locally out of the magnet; and in the same way, but much more strongly, each part of the elements in a plant moves every other part, and each simple element moves every other element, and the virtue of each moves the virtues of the others; now this motion proceeds in a non local way within substance, but because the plant, on account of the influence coming from intrinsic motion, grows according to the growth and multiplication of its parts, all of it then moves locally and outwardly, and this is self evident.

6. Just as each of the simple elements in a plant is indivisible due to its simplicity, so likewise are simple locus and simple motion indivisible; but motion and locus in a plant are divisible by accident, just as compound fire in a plant is divisible by the other elements given that it is differently situated with each element; for motion and locus have their parts disposed in themselves according to the different site of each part, as fire moves up toward the sphere of fire and earth moves down to the sphere of earth; and from such motion, distinction accidentally occurs in a plant and compound movement arises inside and outside the plant, but more intensely inside than outside.