Short Art

is that in which the principle rests. Majority is an image of the immensity of goodness, magnitude, etc. Equality is the subject in which the end of the concordance of goodness, etc., rests. Minority is an entity around nothing. We have spoken of the definitions of the principles which one must know by heart; for with the definitions ignored, the art is unteachable. Concerning the 4th part, which is about the rules: The rules of this art are ten general questions to which all other questions that can be made are reduced, and they are these: Whether it is. What it is. Of what it is. Why it is. How much it is. What kind it is. What it is. Where it is. How it is. And with what it is. Each of these questions has its species. "Whether" has three species: namely, dubitative, affirmative, and negative, so that the intellect at the beginning assumes each part is possible and does not bind itself with belief, which naturally is not its act, but understanding; and thus it accepts that part with which it has greater understanding, for that must be true. "What" has four species. The first is definitive, such as when it is asked what the intellect is. And it must be answered that it is that power to which it properly pertains to understand. The second species is when it is asked what the intellect has in itself co-essentially. And it must be answered that it has its correlatives, namely: the intellective, the intelligible, and the act of understanding, without which it cannot exist; for otherwise it would be idle without them and lacking in nature and rest. The third species is when it is asked