It may be objected that the ("seminal) reason" may remain immutable,
but that nature is distinct from reason, and is mutable. Considering
the totality of nature, we include reason. Considering only one of
its parts as immutable, this part still will be reason. Nature must
be a form, and not a composite of matter and form. What need would
it have of a matter that might be either cold or hot, since matter,
when subjected to form, either possesses these qualities, or receives
them, or rather undergoes the action of reason before having any
qualities. Indeed, it is not by fire that matter becomes fire, but
by reason. Consequently, in animals and plants, it is the "reasons"
that produce[180]; and nature is a reason that produces other reasons,
imparting some of herself to the substance subjected to her influence,
while remaining within herself. The reason that consists in a visible
shape occupies the last rank; it is dead, and produces nothing. The
living "reason" (which administers the body of the living being), being
sister to the "reason" that produced the visible form (in begetting
the body of the living being), and possessing the same power as this
reason, alone produces within the begotten being.[181]
BOTH NATURE AND REASON ARE CONTEMPLATION; WHILE UNIVERSAL REASON IS
BOTH SOUL AND NATURE.
3. (2). How does nature produce? And how, in producing, does she
arrive at contemplation? Since she produces while remaining immovable
within herself, and as she is a "reason," she is a contemplation
also. Indeed, every action is produced according to a "reason," and
consequently differs from it. Reason assists and presides over action,
and consequently is not an action. Since reason is not an action,
it is a contemplation. In universal Reason, the reason which holds
the last rank itself proceeds from contemplation, and in this sense
still deserves the name of contemplation because it is produced by
the contemplation (of the soul). However universal Reason, which is
superior to the latter reason, may be considered under two points of
view, as soul and as nature. (Let us begin by nature.)