Ciclo de Vida del Software

1. The vegetative power is good, as we see in plants that are good in themselves and in the animals that live on plants and cannot survive or be what they are without them.

2. The vegetative power is great, for it enfolds and encompasses all vegetation and everything that is rooted in the vegetative power. Now the intellect asks if the vegetative power in animals and plants is the same power. We reply that it is the same general power present in many different species in a diversity of subjects, and it is diversified on account of them but not on its own account. To say that the vegetative power is plural per se would amount to saying in other words that unity is plurality and plurality is unity, which is impossible. Thus it is obvious that it is the same genus though it is diversified into many different species in various subjects.

3. The vegetative power is durable through is own specific duration. But the intellect wonders: what makes it durable even though the subjects in which it exists are corruptible? Then it remembers that the elementative power makes the vegetative power durable, just as the oil in a lamp makes the flame durable.

4. The vegetative power is powered with its own specific power wherein all the vegetal powers of plants and animals are planted and rooted.

5. The vegetative power has instinct by means of which every vegetated being is committed to its own specific work of clothing itself in its own specific habit, disposition, quantity, quality and so forth.

6. The vegetative power has an appetite for turning elemented things into vegetated things just as the sense of sight has an appetite for turning coloured things into objects sensed by it. This appetite is general to all the appetites in the vegetative genus.

7. The vegetative power is habituated, quantified, qualified etc. with virtue, as we see in plants. Everything that comes to a plant from the earth, water, air and fire in which it is planted is transmuted by the plant into its own species, which it does by taking solid and liquid nourishment. The vegetative also has virtues in plants that physicians have learned to know by experience.

8. By reason of truth, the vegetative power truly vegetates and has its true conditions, such as true substance, quantity, quality etc. without which it would not be planted in its own truth.

9. The vegetative power enjoys preserving its existence and reproducing its species, as we see in plants that procreate as much as they can to avoid non-being.

10. The vegetative power is planted and rooted in difference, so that there are many species belonging to its genus. However, the intellect wonders: why is the colour green more general than any other colour in plants? Then it remembers that earth and water compose the colour green, and that the vegetative is planted, rooted and nourished chiefly in these elements. The intellect also wonders why figs do not grow a hard shell as nuts do; and why is this rose red while this lily is white? Then it remembers greatness, by reason of which difference is great.

11. The vegetative power has concordance so that its species have things in which they agree, for instance, garlic and pepper agree in heat, lettuce and squash agree in coldness etc. and many things convene in colour, disposition, and so forth. The same can be said in its own way about the vegetative in animals. And the vegetative always proceeds by vegetating the dominant complexion of the subject in which it exists.

12. Contrariety is a subject in which the vegetative power is planted so that contrariety can cause corruption just as concordance causes generation. The intellect asks why realgar kills animals whereas wheat keeps them alive, and why garlic and squash have opposite qualities. Then it remembers the greatness in which the vegetative power’s contrariety is planted.

13. The vegetative power is a principle with which vegetating composites transmute one species into another. In addition, vegetative form is a principle by means of which composites transmute old forms into new ones and old matter into new matter, and they do this in order to produce vegetated beings in which vegetal species are engendered and reproduced.

14. The vegetative power is a general medium that exists between the elementative and the sensitive powers, like a line between two points. The vegetative power is grafted on and planted in the elementative power, and in turn, the sensitive power is grafted on the vegetative. And the sensitive power, as the end, stands above the vegetative and influences it while the vegetative reciprocates by sending its own influence with its own specific principles back to the sensitive. Moreover, because the vegetative stands above the elementative, it influences it and the elementative reciprocates by influencing the vegetative. Here, the intellect knows the process whereby plants and animals survive, feed and grow with the vegetative and on the vegetative, with the elementative and on the elementative. This point of knowledge is useful to physicians. The intellect also realizes that a tree is a means, a subject, and an instrument with which and in which the vegetative performs its acts while its principles also perform their acts - like water entering into a vase through one hole and leaving it through another hole - and the vegetative power does this through the mode of generation, corruption and privation.

15. In the vegetative power, the end has the species shown in the angle of the end in the second figure. The end of privation is the cause of corruption in the vegetative. And the sensitive and elementative powers are the termini of the vegetative in which the vegetative is terminated. The end of perfection is the object and the subject of the vegetative power.

16. The vegetative power in plants makes some plants bigger than others, and in animals too, the vegetative makes some animals bigger than others; for instance, a lion can be bigger than other lions or bigger than some other animal like a goat or a hare etc. This is for the purpose of enabling the vegetative power to be planted in majority, with reference to the majority of the ten predicates and of the principles of this art. Now the intellect wonders why a big tree can potentially exist in a tiny seed. Then it remembers how a spark issues from a stone struck with iron, and that a great flame potentially exists in this spark, depending on the material available to it. And the intellect wonders why some fruits of the same tree are bigger than others, as they all belong to the same species; and it asks the same about leaves. Then it remembers the spark in the previous question, and right away the solution becomes clear.

17. There is equality in the vegetative power, so that many plants and many other things can be equal, like this lion and that lion that both equally belong to the same species. Pepper

and garlic are equal in their degree of heat, many apples in the same apple tree have equal fragrance, taste and colour, and so forth. Indeed, this cannot be so unles the vegetative power is planted and rooted in equality.

18. The same things can be said about minority and the vegetative power as we said about majority, because majority and minority are related. By reason of minority, the vegetative power can be reduced to non-being, because it exists now but did not exist before it was created.