eXtreme Programming (XP)

1. The elementative is a power with which the elements enter into composition and it is the substrate of all elemented things. The elementative power is good because without it, corporeal things would be idle and deviated from the end for which they are meant, and the world would be incomplete. Inasmuch as it is good, it is a reason for good to good.

2. The elementative is a great power encompassing many things within its greatness. Moreover, its greatness greatly magnifies its duration, its goodness etc.

3. The elementative lasts as long as the corruption of one element is promptly and without delay followed by the generation of another element, so that no species are absent, nor any of their conditions, because no element is corruptible in its essence.

4. The elementative is a powerful species that is what it is and that does what it does. It has no shortage of this power, for the elementative can element elemented things just as the vegetative power can vegetate vegetated things, just as the sensitive faculty can perceive sense objects, and just as the imaginative faculty can imagine imaginary things.

5. The elementative has a general instinct from which the instincts of species descend, followed by the instincts of individual elemented things. We know this by our experience of the four seasons of the year, namely spring, summer, autumn and winter when the elementative works in different ways as it also does in the four directions, namely in the east, the west, the south and the north. The same can be said about plant and animal life. In addition, the elementative power has an instinct for receiving virtue from the planets and from the eighth sphere. Now the intellect knows why each element acts in accordance with its species.

6. The elementative has an appetite for elementing elemented things so that the appetites of the elements enter into mixture and composition, wherein some elements have an appetite for ascending and other elements have an appetite for descending, and thus the elementative is the substrate of elemented things. Here the intellect sees what causes the elements to move through generation, corruption and privation.

7. The elementative has a general virtue from which the special virtues of the elements descend, and these virtues are the foundation of the virtues present in vegetated and sentient beings. But sometimes its virtue is deficient because of oppositions between elements.

8. The elementative has true conditions whereby one species does not transmute itself into another species. Now we know what depresses alchemists and makes them weep.

9. The elementative naturally enjoys elementing things, just as the vegetative power enjoys vegetating and just as the sensitive power enjoys sensing. Because of this, the elementative expands and reproduces its acts as much as it can, so as to provide great enjoyment to the elements. Here the intellect sees what causes intense heat, taste, colour and things like this.

10. With its difference, the elementative has different subjects in which it is diffused, as in the four masses that are accessible to the senses, like this flame, this air, this water, this earth that we use. The elementative is also present in metals, plants and animals where it is not at all accessible to the senses, but only to the imagination and the intellect. Here, the intellect knows how some philosophers become deceived and say that the elements do not exist in elemented things actually, but only potentially and virtually.

11. By reason of its concordance, end, goodness, greatness, power, instinct, appetite and virtue, the elementative exists in the four masses and in elemented things in a less intense and more dispersed state, to allow for temperament among contrary qualities. Water with its coldness mortifies fire, fire with its heat mortifies water, air with its moisture mortifies earth, and earth with its dryness mortifies air, so that the elementative can generate elements by elementing, just as the digestive power digests digestible matter and just as a blacksmith softens iron with heat to make a nail. Here, the intellect knows that concordance is a general cause of elemented things.

12. The elementative is habituated and disposed in contrary qualities, namely heat and cold, moisture and dryness, lightness and heaviness, rarity and density; so that contrariety can cause corruption in elemented things.

13. In the elementative, there are four principles: the elementing entity is an efficient principle that introduces form into matter to produce elemented things in the end. The principles of this art, namely goodness, greatness etc. concur in this process, as does the movement of heaven that causes the elementative to move in things below. Moreover, the ten predicates are in the elementative, which is diffused in them as well as in the principles and rules of this art. The principles are in the elementative in a more objective way, whereas the rules are in it in a more subjective way. Here, the intellect realizes that the principles objectify the elementative whereas the rules sustain it.

14. The elementative mediates between the simple elements and compound elemented things, just as the particular senses mediate between the common sense and sense objects. Here the intellect recognizes the source of elementative movement, the points from which it flows back to its source and the subjects through which it runs its course.

15. The end purpose of the elementative is in having and generating the elemented things in which it reposes. The elementative has no other appetite beyond this; for if it did have an appetite for anything more than its elemented product, its elemented product would not be its own proper goal, so that it would repose more in something that does not come out of its own nature, than in something that does. Thus, a blacksmith would find more satisfaction in the nails that he produces than in his own son whom he has engendered, and a lion would find greater satisfaction in hunting than in generating offspring, which is impossible. Therefore, it is clear that the ultimate purpose of the elementative is in having and generating the elemented things in which it reposes. Now the intellect knows that the elementative reposes in elemented things just as the vegetative power reposes in vegetated things, just as the imaginative reposes in imagined things and just as the intellect reposes in the things understood by it

16. In its subjects, the elementative has a major presence of one quality and a minor presence of other qualities; for instance, it is present in pepper with more heat than dryness, more dryness than moisture and more moisture than cold. Here the intellect knows the process whereby the elementative produces subalternate degrees in its subjects; however, the pattern of youth and old age is not the same, for here the elementative is greater in the middle than in the extremes, just as the Sun has a greater and hotter effect at noon than it has in the morning or in the evening.

17. The elementative is disposed in equality. The elementative has quantitatively equal essences so that there can be proportionality in elemented things and so that this rose and that rose can equally belong to the same species. Likewise with other things in their way: for otherwise, the elements would corrupt each others' essence and nature, or one element would transmute another into its essence, as if a rose could transmute a lily or a violet into its own essence.

18. The elementative is disposed in minority, because its principles were brought forth from nothingness by creation, and when the elementative exists in minor elemented things, its habits and disposition are of minor quantity, quality etc.