Cause Principle Unity

On magic
are not equal. For light diffuses and penetrates through the lowest and
deepest darkness, but darkness does not touch the purest sphere of light.
Thus, light penetrates and conquers darkness and overflows to infinity,
while darkness does not penetrate or overwhelm or equal the light, but
rather is very weak compared to light.
Parallel to the three types of magic mentioned above, there are three
different worlds to be distinguished: the archetypal, the physical and the
rational. Friendship and strife are located in the archetypal world, fire and
water in the physical world, and light and darkness in the mathematical
world. Light and darkness descend from fire and water, which in turn
descend from peace and strife. Thus, the first world produces the third
world through the second, and the third world is reflected in the first
through the second.
Leaving aside those principles of magic which play on the superstitious
and which, whatever they be, are unworthy of the general public, we will
direct our thoughts only to those things which contribute to wisdom and
which can satisfy better minds. Nevertheless, no type of magic is unworthy
of notice and examination, because every science deals with the good,
as Aristotle says in the introduction to his De anima, 4 and as Thomas and
other more contemplative theologians agree. Nevertheless, all this should
be kept far away from profane and wicked people and from the multitudes.
For nothing is so good that impious and sacrilegious and wicked people
cannot contort its proper benefit into evil.
In general, there are two types of efficient cause: nature and the will. The
will is threefold: human, spiritual and divine. Nature, as used here, is
twofold: intrinsic and extrinsic. Furthermore, intrinsic nature is of two
kinds: matter or the subject, and form with its natural power. Extrinsic
nature is also of two kinds: the first, which is preferably called an image of
nature, is a trace and shadow or light which remains in a thing within its
body, like light and heat in the sun and in other hot bodies; the second
emanates and radiates from a subject, like light, which flows from the sun
and is found in illuminated things, and like heat, which resides with light
in the sun and is also found in heated bodies.
By examining the number of these causes, we can descend to the
differentiation of powers or of effects produced by the first cause through
the intermediate causes down to the closest and lowest ones, by restricting
the universal cause, which, itself, does not attend to any one available
4 Aristotle, De anima, I, 1 (402.a.1–2).
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