Breviloquium

But with respect to operation, this must be held concerning corporeal nature: namely, that celestial things influence terrestrial and elemental things with respect to the distinctive indication of times, namely days, months, and years. Thus Scripture says,¹ that they are for signs, and seasons, and days, and years. — They also influence the effective production of generable and corruptible things, namely minerals, plants, sensibles, and human bodies. — Yet they are signs of times and governance of operations in such a way that they are not certain signs of future contingent events, nor do they influence free will through the force of the constellations, which some philosophers said was fate.

The reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: since, on account of their proximity to the first principle, there are light, motion, heat, and virtue in celestial bodies — light by reason of its form and species, motion with respect to the superior influencer, heat with respect to the inferior receiving nature, and virtue in all the aforesaid modes — since, I say, this is so, celestial bodies through light and motion are involved in the distinctions of times, namely of the day, according to the light of the sun and the motion of the firmament; of the month, according to the motion of the moon in the oblique circle;² of the year, according to the motion of the sun in the same circle; but of the seasons, according to the varying motion of the planets, their distance and conjunction, ascent and descent, retrogradation and station, from which diversity in the seasons arises.

But through virtue and heat they influence the production of what is generated from the elements, by exciting, advancing, and reconciling; so that according to a reconciliation of contraries remote from equality they influence minerals; according to a reconciliation less distant from equality, plants; according to a reconciliation approaching equality, sensibles; but according to an equal reconciliation, human bodies, which are disposed to the noblest form, namely the rational soul;³ to which the appetite of all sensible and corporeal nature is ordered and directed, so that through it, which is form, being, living, sensing, and understanding, it may, as it were after the manner of an intelligible circle, be led back to its principle, in which it may be perfected and beatified.⁴

And since it tends toward that principle through free will, therefore, with respect to freedom of will, it surpasses every corporeal virtue; and thereby all things are naturally born to serve it, while it has nothing to dominate it except God alone, not fate or the force of the position of the stars.

And therefore it is undoubtedly true that we are⁵ the end of all things that are, and all corporeal things were made for human service, so that from all of them man may be kindled to love and praise the Maker of the universe, by whose providence all things are disposed.

This sensible machine of corporeal things, therefore, is like a certain house built for man by the supreme craftsman, until he comes to the house not made by hands in heaven;⁶ so that, just as the soul now, by reason of the body and the state of merit, is on earth, so at some time the body, by reason of the soul and the state of reward, may be in heaven.