LIBER CHAOS Bl. Raymond Lull Doctor Illuminatus

Part II

R - Radical Moisture

1. All radical moistures were created in the virtue of the prime Chaos, and their situation can be considered in five ways.

a. The first way is between the first, second and third Chaos; now the first was the matter on which the second lived, and the second is the matter on which the third lives. Radical moisture is a species existing in particulars whose subject is the prime Chaos, and this species can be sensed in its individuals, like stars in the firmament, while the prime Chaos is invisible and insensible like the firmament in which the stars are placed.

b. The second is the way every plant on earth has its own radical moisture in itself as it lives and feeds on all the elements, while the prime Chaos communicates itself to the third, which converts elemental matter and form to the matter and form of any given plant. This matter, with its own proper specific form and accidents, is the radical moisture generated from another plant of the same species as its offspring.

c. Third, there is the grafting of trees, for instance, when a branch of pear is grafted on an apple tree: now the radical moisture of the pear lives on the apple tree's form and matter, which its converts into its own form and matter.

d. Fourth, in the generation of animals, each animal generates from its own radical moisture another animal of its own species. For instance, a man begets a man without any decrease of his own radical moisture, in the same way that one light generates another light without decreasing any of its being and numerical identity. When one substance generates another substance, there is no decrease in the generating substance's numerical identity.

e. Finally, the fifth way is in the benefit that animal life draws from the four elements, for instance, when a man is born, he lives on the things he receives from the elements by suckling, eating, drinking, breathing, and the same applies to other animals.

2. In the prime Chaos, all species were created in potentiality and brought to act in the second and then in the third. Radical moistures were thus produced from the prime Chaos into the second, and are now being produced in the third, and these radical moistures descend from the prime Chaos without any decrease of the prime Chaos.

3. When a grain dies in the ground so as to generate many grains from itself, it has in itself a radical moisture received from the grain that generated it, and in turn, this grain divides its own radical moisture into a great many grains similar to itself, just as a candle lit by another candle receives radical moisture from the light of the candle lighting it without decreasing the latter, and thus each radical moisture grows to the perfection of its own being, and this growth takes place because the generating radical moisture transmutes into its own matter and form, the matter and form of the prime Chaos instilled into the third, just as fire converts into its own matter and form the matter and form of wood, and with more wood, there is more fire. When the individuality of the generating grain's radical moisture is destroyed, the essence of this radical moisture is conserved in the generated grains.

4. In a graft, one radical moisture is transmuted into another radical moisture while both remain distinct; that is to say, the lower and upper parts remain distinct as species, just as there is a transmutation of the radical moistures of a horse and a female donkey when a mule is produced, while each parent keeps its own numerically identical radical moisture; now the radical moisture in the upper part of the tree lives on the radical moisture of the lower part of the same tree and converts the matter and form of the lower part into its own matter and form, and so the essence of the lower part, as it ascends to the upper part, leaves behind its own form, because the essence is now informed by the form of the upper part so that the radical moisture of the upper part can live on the influx of essence from the radical moisture of the lower part, and as much as the essence of the lower part is transmuted into the form of the upper part, so much does the lower part recuperate from the prime Chaos flowing into it.

5. From the substance and accidents of a man and a woman, a radical moisture is generated in the womb of the woman as she conceives from the man, and this moisture which lives on the mother's matter in the womb  is an embryo. Here, whatever was infused by the father and mother into the offspring is restored to the same parents by the prime Chaos as they partake of food.

6. In the human species, the embryo is generated from the radical moistures of the man and the woman, or else it would not be naturally their son. But the man's and woman's individual radical moistures are not diminished by this, rather, the man's radical moisture as well as the woman's each retain their own indivisible numerical identity, or else no human could remain in his own specific being as the same individual at different times, which is impossible.

7. Generated specific form and specific matter are received from the radical moisture of the man and the woman in whom they potentially existed, and just like one lit taper lights another with its light while still retaining its specific being, so the virtue which conserves the numerical identities of the man and woman is not diminished when generating a child, but remains specific to each being, namely the man and the woman, or else no human could have his own specific being and numerical identity, which is impossible.

8. Further, whatever the generating man and the woman recuperate from the prime Chaos to replace what they transmuted from themselves into their child, is ingested by them as nourishment. As they live on, they transmute the essence of the prime Chaos into their own corporeal substance on which the radical moisture of each of them lives, like light on oil, or a plant from rain and earth. Therefore, there remains a difference between the essence of radical moisture whereby a man has his specific being, and the essence on which he feeds and is nourished by transmuting it into blood, from blood into flesh and from flesh into limbs etc. as the parts of the prime Chaos enter into the third, which is clear enough when fire is produced by striking a rock against iron, with its own form and matter making up its own individual radical moisture, and the matter and form of the oil on which a flame lives are its own nourishing moisture; the same can be seen in the vegetative power in which there are four powers, namely the appetitive, retentive, digestive and expulsive. Now through the appetitive, each specific essence of radical moisture has appetite for the essence of its own nourishment digested for its sustenance; therefore the essence of radical moisture keeps its own specific identity by retaining the nourishing essence on which it lives, and once the radical moisture has obtained what it needs from the nourishing essence, it expels the latter with its expulsive power.

9. From what was said above, it is clear that the nourishing matter is not numerically identical to the matter of the radical moisture, now when it is stripped of its own form, this matter which exists under the essence of the radical moisture's form has another potential form, and this form is brought into act when the said matter is expelled by the expulsive power.

10. Supposing that one man eats another, it does not follow that the radical moisture of the eaten man can be converted into the radical moisture of the man eating him, for if a man's radical moisture were converted, it would relinquish its identity, and lose its purpose because God's justice could not exercise judgment on it; and hence, supposing that a man eats another man, the matter of the eaten man's radical moisture always habitually retains its own specific form, and will recover this form in act on the day of resurrection, or else God's idea would not be perfect. It therefore remains that anything divided in any way from this moisture is a part of the radical moisture, and even if a man eats another man, it does not follow that the eaten man's radical moisture is converted into the individual radical moisture of the man who eats him, but rather into nourishing moisture, and moreover, the radical moisture of the eater lives on the radical moisture of the eaten man, like fire lives on the essence of a lit candle.

11. Cold water is potentially hot. When fire heats water in a pot, heat comes into act and is increased by the said potential heat, and grows stronger until the water boils; likewise, when an embryo is generated, a small amount of radical moisture instantly starts to grow bit by bit until it becomes a complete human being. Whatever can grow in virtue and substance does not undergo any increase or decrease in its individual moisture after generation, and on this account, a son can be truly his father's son and truly human, because if he could be increased by another foreign essence not produced by the parents from which he was generated, he would neither be a complete child or a complete man, which is impossible. And just as all things in the third Chaos were previously created in capacity of the prime Chaos, so likewise, the quantity of the child's radical moisture grows by virtue of the radical moisture it received by way of generation, as shown above.

12. After a child's death, it would seem that on the day of resurrection its radical moisture will be made to grow by the virtue it originally had, and whereby it would have grown, had it survived, to the stature of a complete man. But this must be subject to the situation of its parts which were conserved by God's Idea and Justice.

Enough has been said here about the second Elemental Figure in which we had proposed to investigate the Chaos as far as we could, and so as not to extend this work into confusing prolixity, we made many suppositions, and whatever these may be, we know beyond any doubt that they can be tested in the second Elemental Figure by demonstration, if it is directed by figure T according to the rules of this art.

Here ends the Book on Chaos