Magiae Naturalis by John Baptista Porta.pdf - Gnomicon

water. And those which Aristotle called sometimes secondary qualities, sometimes bodily effects, we may term them the
functions and powers of the matter; as thinness, thickness, roughness, smoothness, easiness to be cleft, and such like,
are altogether in the power of the matter, how they proceed all from the Elements. Therefore to avoid confusion, it is
better to hold that the effects of the qualities come of the temperature or mixture of the Elements, but the effects of
the matter from the consistency or substance of them. But the form has such singular Virtue, that what ever effects
we see, all of them first proceed from there; and it has a divine beginning, and being the chief and most excellent part,
absolute of herself, the use the rest as her instruments, for the more speedy and convenient dispatch of her actions.
And he which is not addicted nor accustomed to such contemplations, supposes that the temperature and the matter
works all things, where indeed they are but as it were instruments where the form works. For a workman that uses a
graving Iron in the carving of an image, does not use it as though that could work, but for his own furtherance in the
quicker and better performance thereof. Therefore where there are three efficient and working causes in every
Compound, we must not suppose any of them to be idle, but all at work, some more and some less. But above all
other, the form is most active and busy, strengthening the rest; which surely would be to no purpose if the form should
fail them, in as much as they are not capable of heavenly influences. And though the form of itself be not able to
produce such effects, the rest also must do their parts, yet are they neither confounded together, nor yet become
diverse things; but they are to knit among themselves, that one stands in need of anothers help. He that scans these
things well by the search of reason, shall find no obscurity herein, nor confound the knowledge of the truth. Wherefore
that force which is called the property of a thing, proceeds not from the temperature, but from the very form itself.
Chapter VI
"From where Form comes; and of the chain that Homer feigned, and the rings
that Plato mentions"
So then, the form, as it is the most excellent part, so it comes from a most excellent place; even immediately from the
highest heavens, they receiving it from the intelligence's, and there from God himself. And the same original which the
form has, consequently the properties also have. Zeno Citticus holds two beginnings, God and matter; the one of them
active or efficient, the other the passive principle. For God, as Plato thinks, when by the almighty power of his deity he
had framed in due measure and order the heavens, the stars, and the very first principles of things, the Elements,
which wash away by reason of so many generations and corruptions, did afterwards by the power of the heavens and
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