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On magic<br />
On the bondings of spirits, and first those arising<br />
from the three conditions of agent, matter, and application<br />
For actions actually to occur in the world, three conditions are required:<br />
(1) an active power in the agent; (2) a passive power or disposition in a subject<br />
or patient, which is an aptitude in it not to resist or to render the action<br />
impossible (which reduces to one phrase, namely, the potency of matter);<br />
and (3) an appropriate application, which is subject to the circumstances<br />
of time, place and other conditions.<br />
In the absence of these three conditions, all actions are, simply speaking,<br />
always blocked. For even if a flute player is perfect, he is blocked by a broken<br />
flute, and the application of the former to the latter is useless. Thus, a<br />
lack of power in the matter makes an agent impotent and an application<br />
unfitting. This is what was meant when we said that an absence of these<br />
three conditions, strictly speaking, always blocks an action.<br />
Closer examination may show that the defect is due to only two, or even<br />
only one, of these conditions. But a defect in any one of them should be<br />
understood as meaning a defect in all three, as when the flute player and his<br />
performance are perfect but the flute is defective, or when the player and<br />
the flute are perfect but the performance is interrupted. If the whole<br />
meaning of efficient action is taken to consist in the application, then the<br />
first condition merges with the third, for the agent is nothing other than the<br />
applicator, and to do something is nothing other than to apply something.<br />
Not all things are by nature passive, or active, in relation to all other<br />
things. Rather, as is said in the Physics, 25 every passion is from a contrary,<br />
and every action is on a contrary, or more specifically, on a disposed contrary,<br />
as is stated in the common saying, ‘Active powers act on a properly<br />
disposed patient’. From this, it is clear that water mingles and mixes with<br />
water because of a similarity or awareness or sympathy, such that after they<br />
have united, no device can separate the one from the other.<br />
Indeed, pure or unmingled wine also easily mixes with water, and vice<br />
versa, thus forming a mixture. But the parts of the wine contain some<br />
amount of heat and air and spirits, and thus the wine is not completely<br />
sympathetic with the water. As a result, they do not mix at the smallest level<br />
but survive separately to a noticeable degree in a heterogeneous compound,<br />
so that they can be separated again in various ways. The same thing<br />
25 Aristotle, Physics, I, 5. See also his De generatione et corruptione, I, 7, which makes this point more<br />
explicitly.<br />
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