(29) Now some are Procatarctic, some Synectic, some Joint-causes, some Co-operating causes. And there are some according to nature, some beyond nature.

(105) The first three, viz. the astringent, the sweet, and the bitter, belong to the imaging or forming of the body; and therein stands the mobility, and the body or corporeity. And these now have the comprehensibility or palpability, and are the birth of the outermost nature.

(54) Briefly, whatsoever imageth itself, stands in the power and authority of these three head qualities, and is formed by them, and also is formed out of their own power.

(26) Further, of causes, some are apparent; others are grasped by a process of reasoning; others are occult; others are inferred analogically.

(65) For in these five qualities rise up the seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling; and so a rational spirit cometh to be.

(43) One of the most surprising features of this discovery is that we finally perceive that the two contrasting sets of qualities are really but two aspects or phases of the whole thing—the real thing, or thing in itself—the unity of the two, instead of being two separated and distinct things. Or, stating it in other words, we discover that the two opposing sets of characteristics are merely relative to each other, and together form a correlated unity and balanced whole.

(106) The other three, viz. the heat, the love, and the tone, stand in the incomprehensibility, and are generated out of the first three; and this now is the inward birth, wherewith the Deity qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth.

(4) What, then, we have to ask, is the constant element in the first three entities? What is it that identifies them with their inherent Substance?

Is it the capacity to serve as a base? But Matter, we maintain, serves as the base and seat of Form: Form, thus, will be excluded from the category of Substance. Again, the Composite is the base and seat of attributes: hence, Form combined with Matter will be the basic ground of Composites, or at any rate of all posteriors of the Composite- Quantity, Quality, Motion, and the rest.

But perhaps we may think Substance validly defined as that which is not predicated of anything else. White and black are predicated of an object having one or other of these qualities; double presupposes something distinct from itself- we refer not to the half, but to the length of wood of which doubleness is affirmed. father qua father is a predicate; knowledge is predicated of the subject in whom the knowledge exists; space is the limit of something, time the measure of something. Fire, on the other hand, is predicated of nothing; wood as such is predicated of nothing; and so with man, Socrates, and the composite substance in general.

Equally the Substantial Form is never a predicate, since it never acts as a modification of anything. Form is not an attribute of Matter hence, is not predicable of Matter it is simply a constituent of the Couplement. On the other hand, the Form of a man is not different from the man himself .

Matter, similarly, is part of a whole, and belongs to something else only as to a whole and not as to a separate thing of which it is predicated. White, on the contrary, essentially belongs to something distinct from itself.

We conclude that nothing belonging to something else and predicated of it can be Substance. Substance is that which belongs essentially to itself, or, in so far as it is a part of the differentiated object, serves only to complete the Composite. Each or either part of the Composite belongs to itself, and is only affirmed of the Composite in a special sense: only qua part of the whole is it predicated of something else; qua individual it is never in its essential nature predicated of an external.

It may be claimed as a common element in Matter, Form and the Couplement that they are all substrates. But the mode in which Matter is the substrate of Form is different from that in which Form and the Couplement are substrates of their modifications.

And is it strictly true to say that Matter is the substrate of Form? Form is rather the completion which Matter's nature as pure potentiality demands.

Moreover, Form cannot be said to reside in Matter . When one thing combines with another to form a unity, the one does not reside in the other; both alike are substrates of a third: thus, Man and a man are substrates of their experiences, and are prior to their activities and consequents.

Substance, then, is that from which all other things proceed and to which they owe their existence; it is the centre of passivity and the source of action.

(18) Knowledge, the knowable, and the knower form the threefold impulse to action; the organ, the action and the agent form the threefold basis of action.

(3) Then it is to be inquired whether the proposition belongs to those points, which are considered in relation to others, or is taken by itself. Further, If it is, what it is, what happens to it; or thus, also, if it is, what it is, why it is. And to the consideration of these points, the knowledge of Particulars and Universals, and the Antecedents and the Differences, and their divisions, contribute.

(15) How then do the four genera complete Substance without qualifying it or even particularizing it?

It has been observed that Being is primary, and it is clear that none of the four- Motion, Stability, Difference, Identity- is distinct from it. That this Motion does not produce Quality is doubtless also clear, but a word or two will make it clearer still.

If Motion is the Act of Substance, and Being and the Primaries in general are its Act, then Motion is not an accidental attribute: as the Act of what is necessarily actual , it is no longer to be considered as the complement of Substance but as Substance itself. For this reason, then, it has not been assigned to a posterior class, or referred to Quality, but has been made contemporary with Being.

The truth is not that Being first is and then takes Motion, first is and then acquires Stability: neither Stability nor Motion is a mere modification of Being. Similarly, Identity and Difference are not later additions: Being did not grow into plurality; its very unity was a plurality; but plurality implies Difference, and unity-in-plurality involves Identity.

Substance requires no more than these five constituents; but when we have to turn to the lower sphere, we find other principles giving rise no longer to Substance (as such) but to quantitative Substance and qualitative: these other principles may be regarded as genera but not primary genera.

(55) And it is here very exactly seen how the third Principle unites itself with the first, and how they have one [only] Will, for they proceed from one another; and if the second Principle was not in the Midst [between them] then they were but one [and the same] Thing. But speaking here of the Tincture in the Life, we will therefore show in the Light of Nature the true Ground of all the three Births.

(65) Each quality goeth forth from itself into the others, and toucheth or stirreth the others, that is, it affecteth the others, whereby the other qualities get the will of this quality; that is, they prove the sharpness and spirit of this, as to what is in it, and always mix with it continually.

(21) III. The third generating is the bitterness, which existeth out of the fire in the water; for it rubbeth and vexeth itself in the astringent and sharp coldness, and makes the coldness moveable, from whence mobility existeth.

(3) Of things stated, some are stated without connection; as, for example, "man" and "runs," and whatever does not complete a sentence, which is either true or false. And of things stated in connection, some point out "essence," some "quality," some "quantity," some "relation,'' some "where," some "when," some "position," some "possession," some "action," some "suffering," which we call the elements of material things after the first principles. For these are capable of being contemplated by reason.

(4) Within in thyself in nature be the powers of thy soul: the which be these three principal, Memory, Reason, and Will; and secondary, Imagination and Sensuality.

(61) For coldness and hardness stand in the astringent quality, and are a contraction and drying; and in the sweet quality stand the water, and the light or shiningness, and the whole matter of the body.

(28) For all whatsoever lives in the third Principle, corrupts, [or passes away,] and goes into its Ether and End, till [it comes] to the Figure of the Tincture; and that continues standing eternally as a Shadow or Will, without Spirit or Mobility: But in the second Principle the Tincture continues eternally standing in the Spirit, and in the Substance [or Essence,] all very powerfully, viz. in Angels and Men, as also in the Beginning [or first Springing] of every Substance; for their Center to the Birth is eternally fixed [or steadfast.] Of its [the Tincture' s] Essences and Property. The deep Gate of Life.

(14) Why is Quality, again, not included among the Primaries? Because like Quantity it is a posterior, subsequent to Substance. Primary Substance must necessarily contain Quantity and Quality as its consequents; it cannot owe its subsistence to them, or require them for its completion: that would make it posterior to Quality and Quantity.

Now in the case of composite substances- those constituted from diverse elements- number and qualities provide a means of differentiation: the qualities may be detached from the common core around which they are found to group themselves. But in the primary genera there is no distinction to be drawn between simples and composites; the difference is between simples and those entities which complete not a particular substance but Substance as such. A particular substance may very well receive completion from Quality, for though it already has Substance before the accession of Quality, its particular character is external to Substance. But in Substance itself all the elements are substantial.

Nevertheless, we ventured to assert elsewhere that while the complements of Substance are only by analogy called qualities, yet accessions of external origin and subsequent to Substance are really qualities; that, further, the properties which inhere in substances are their activities , while those which are subsequent are merely modifications : we now affirm that the attributes of the particular substance are never complementary to Substance ; an accession of Substance does not come to the substance of man qua man; he is, on the contrary, Substance in a higher degree before he arrives at differentiation, just as he is already "living being" before he passes into the rational species.

(108) I. First, there is the power, from which a body comes to be, whether wood, stone or herbs. II. After that, there is a sap in that thing, which is the heart of the thing. III. Thirdly, there is in it a springing, flowing power, smell or taste, which is the spirit of the thing, whereby it grows and increaseth. Now if any of these three fail, the thing cannot subsist.