LIBER SECUNDUS 



A P H R I S M R U M 



DB 



INTERPRETATION NATURAE 



SITE DB 



KEGNO HOMINIS. 



' APHORISMUS 



SUPER datum corpus novam naturam sive novas naturas 

 generare et superinducere, opus et intentio est humanae Po- 

 tentiae. Datas autem naturae Eprmam, sive differentiam veram, -ftr 



nftfeye^ my tALOvu^f VcoZwt e/i^ fC"4/i*^t. 7 ^-x,<^ *.<A^ 



sive naturam jiatarantemj 1 ^ siye rontem jjmanationis (ista enim 

 vocabulahabemus quaa ad indicalionem rei proxime accedunt) 

 invenire, opus et intentio est humanas Scientiae. 2 Atque his 

 operibus prhnariis subordinantur alia opera duo secundaria et 

 inferioris notae ; priori, transformatio corporum concretorum 

 de alio in aliud, intra terminos Possibilis 3 ; posteriori, inventio 

 in omni generatione et motu latentis processus, continuati ab 



1 This is the only passage in which I have met with the phrase natitra naturans 

 used as it is here. With the later schoolmen, as with Spinoza, it denotes God con- 

 sidered as the causa immanens of the universe, and therefore, according to the latter 

 at least, not hypostatically distinct from it. (On the Pantheistic tendency occasionally 

 perceptible among the schoolmen, see Neander's Essay on Scotus Erigena in the Berlin 

 Memoirs.') Bacon applies it to the Form, considered as the causa immanens of the 

 properties of the body. I regret not having been able to trace the history of this 

 remarkable phrase. It does not occur, I think, in St. Thomas Aquinas, though I have 

 met with it in an index to his Summa; the passage referred to containing a quotation 

 from St. Augustine, in which the latter speaks of " ea natura qua* creavit omnes caeteras 

 instituitque naturas." ( V. St. Aug., De Trin. xiv. 9. ) Neither does it occur, so far 

 as 1 am aware, where we might have expected it, in the De Divisione Naturae of Scotus 

 Erigena. Vossius, De Vitiis Latini Sermonis, notices its use among the schoolmen, 

 but gives no particular reference. 



2 See General Preface, 7. p. 25. 



3 The possibility of transmutation, long and strenuously denied, though certainly 

 on no sufficient grounds, is now generally admitted. " There was a time when this 

 fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies. It is now 

 no longer so opposed to them, only some stages beyond their present development." 

 Faraday, Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, p. 106. 



Q 2 



