Jean Fernel's On the hidden causes of things : forms, souls, and occult diseases in Renaissance medicine / with an edition and translation of Fernel's De abditis rerum causis by John M. Forrester ; introduction and annotations by John Henry & John M. Forrester.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Latin text with English translation.

Print version record.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Jean Fernel and the Importance of his De abditis rerum causis; On the Transcript and the Translation; De abditis rerum causis: a Synopsis; De abditis rerum causis; Preface; Liber primus/book I; Chapter 1. The elements of the world provide the only matter for each thing that is brought into being; Chapter 2. The form of a natural thing is substance, not accident; Chapter 3. The substance of the form of every natural body is simple, and has not arisen from the forms of the substrate, contrary to Alexander's position

Chapter 4. The forms of the individual parts that are in a composite are as it were preparations for the introduction of a form of the whole, and they are multipleChapter 5. It is not the potentiality of a natural thing to proceed to a form through its own initiative; but just as an actuality is summoned from a disposition, a form is summoned from the potential; Chapter 6. There was not the smallest contribution previously in matter towards the generation of a form, and there is no potentiality of a form, nor can it be assigned to the kind of a substance

Chapter 7. The form of what has been generated could not emanate from the parents. The character and source of the true origin of formsChapter 8. The forms and original substances of everything are derived from heaven, according to Aristotle; Chapter 9. In philosophising upon Nature, Aristotle established the divine origin of forms: that greatest God created the heavens and stars, and bestowed on these the powers of begetting things; these; Chapter 10. All transient and mortal things were divinely originated in the past

They are now both begotten and controlled by heavenly excellence, which is itself manifestly divineChapter 11. The spirits by whose rudders people say the world is controlled; Liber secundus/book II; Preface; Chapter 1. Powers reside in each generated thing that are some of them due to the matter, some of them to the temperament of the qualities, and some to the form; Chapter 2. The powers that a form displays, like the form itself, are manifestly divine and are referred to as such, there being no sure and evident basis for them

Chapter 3. The structure of the human body and of every living creature is divineChapter 4. Our soul is not sprung from the elements, on Galen's judgment; Chapter 5. What the faculty of the soul is to Galen; Chapter 6. The substance of the three parts of the soul is divine, on Galen's view; Chapter 7. The spirits of the human body, like those of all living things, are divine, as is their innate heat; Chapter 8. Very many functions and activities in us come from hidden causes; Chapter 9. Not one but three kinds of diseases are present in a similar part, and which the diseases of matter are

An annotated translation of Jean Fernel's On the Hidden Causes of Things (1542). A major innovatory work in Renaissance natural philosophy and medicine, and a crucially important source for understanding the notion of occult qualities, with a scholarly introduction.

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