Book 1
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Aristotle and Plato affirm that matter is of that species which is corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin of all other beings. But they that do say that water, earth, air, and fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and atoms are matter do say that matter is without form.
Chapter X. OF IDEAS.
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AN idea is a being incorporeal, which has no subsistence by itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of its manifestation.
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Socrates and Plato conjecture that these ideas are essences separate from matter, having their existence in the understanding and fancy of the Deity, that is, of mind.
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Aristotle objected not to forms and ideas; but he doth not believe them separated from matter, or patterns of what God has made.
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Those Stoics, that are of the school of Zeno, profess that ideas are nothing else but the conceptions of our own mind.
Chapter XI. OF CAUSES.
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A CAUSE is that by which any thing is produced, or by which any thing is effected.
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Plato gives this triple division of causes,—the material, the efficient, and the final cause; the principal cause he judges to be the efficient, which is the mind and intellect.
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Pythagoras and Aristotle judge the first causes are incorporeal beings, but those that are causes by accident or participation become corporeal substances; by this means the world is corporeal.
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The Stoics grant that all causes are corporeal, inasmuch as they are breath.
Chapter XII. OF BODIES.
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A BODY is that being which hath these three dimensions, breadth, depth, and length ;—or a bulk which makes a sensible resistance;—or whatsoever of its own nature possesseth a place.
