his definition, he who
held Imperial Office, not saying Emperor, but "one raised to Empire,"
to indicate, as has been said above, that this question is beyond the
bounds of the Imperial Office. In like manner I say that he errs who
places a false subject under Nobility, that is, "descent of wealth,"
and then proceeds to a defective form, or rather difference, that is,
"generous ways," which do not contain any essential part of Nobility,
but only a small part, as will appear below. And it is not to be
omitted, although the text may be silent, that my Lord the Emperor in
this part did not err in the parts of the definition, but only in the
mode of the definition, although, according to what fame reports of
him, he was a logician and a great scholar; that is to say, the
definition of Nobility can be made more sufficiently by the effects
than by the principles or premisses, since it appears to have the
place of a first principle or premiss, which it is not possible to
notify by first things, but by subsequent things. Then, when I say,
"For riches make not worth," I show how they cannot possibly be the
cause of Nobility, because they are vile. And I prove that they have
not the power to take it away, because they are disjoined so much from
Nobility. And I prove these to be vile by an especial and most evident
defect; and I do this when I say, "How vile and incomplete." Finally,
I conclude, by virtue of that which is said above:

And hence the upright mind,
To its own purpose true,
Stands firm although the flood of wealth
Sweep onward out of view;

which proves that which is said above, that those riches are disunited
from Nobility by not following the effect of union with it. Where it
is to be known that, as the Philosopher expresses it, all the things
which make anything must first exist perfectly within the being of the
thing out of which that other thing is made. Wherefore he says in the
seventh chapter of the Metaphysics: "When one thing is generated from
another, it is generated of that thing by being in that Being."

Again, it is to be known that each thing which becomes corrupt is thus
corrupted by some change or alteration, and each thing which is
changed or altered must be conjoined with the cause of the change,
even as the Philosopher expresses it in the seventh chapter of the
book on Physics and in the first chapter on Generation. These things
being propounded, I proceed thus, and I say th