The material cause in this Science is the movement, to which stillness is the term, with which stillness, considered in itself, is opposed to movement, because just as the power that is not reduced to action is in vain, so too is the movement that is not reduced to the term in which it acquires stillness, perfecting the effect in defense and offense, which is the final cause to which all the perfection of Skill is directed, whose greatest foundation is in movements that end in execution, offending the opponent, or depriving him of the ability to offend, which both stem from terminated movements, because as long as they do not reach stillness, it cannot be said that Tactics and Wounds receive essentially consummated forms.
For such a subject, it is necessary to know what Movement is in its Genre and Species, as understood by philosophers, and how it is understood in this science? In philosophy, movement is understood in various ways, because some admit it as absolute, like Plato, others deny it, or ignore it at most, as noted by Galen. Democritus tried to reduce all movements to oblique or circular ones. Epicurus granted eternal movement to the eternal, and temporal movement to the temporal. From these and other philosophers, Plutarch compiled various opinions, which the curious can see.
Plato assigns distinct metaphysical movements to the powers of the weapon, calling immanent action those that are in the agent itself, as in the subject, being the understanding of the intellectual power, the wanting of the appetitive or voluntary power, and the reminiscing of the memory. These potential movements look at intrinsic operations, and in this science, these very metaphysical movements are not considered, but rather those that can be perceived as real entities, or as physical and external.
Plato identified ten species of Movement: 1. Circular, or in a circle: 2. Local transit: 3. Condensation: 4. Rarefaction: 5. Increase: 6. Decrease: 7. Generation: 8. Corruption: 9. Mutual change from one to another: 10. Change in itself, and in another. Aristotle, in various places, noted various species of Movements: some spontaneous from nature, as in the Elements and the Heavens; others voluntary, or forced, as in animals, granting movement either inherently or accidentally, according to the causes and effects. Finally, he categorizes them into their specific genres, mostly agreeing with Plato: 1. of Generation: 2. of Corruption: 3. of Increase: 4. of Decrease: 5. of Alteration: 6. from Place to place. The same philosopher notes that all movements, in relation to each other according to their genres, are diverse and all contrary to termination or stillness, and can also be contrary to each other, as generation is contrary to corruption, increase is to decrease, etc. He observed in the species elevation and fall, and categorized alteration, mutation, movement, and stillness under the Predicament of Quality, acknowledging that alteration can be found without increase, and vice versa; and the mathematical increase can be without alteration, as in the square, or parallelogram, whose gnomon can grow and not be altered.
Celio Rodigino, following the teachings of Pythagoras and others, identified six species of Movements, by as many straight lines, which are: 1. High: 2. Lowest: 3. Right: 4. Left: 5. Forward: 6. Backward. And from these positions, he inferred, noting that every Movement, the more direct it is, the stronger it is; and the more oblique, the weaker.
From the preceding principles, as the most essential for this science, Movement is defined almost in its supreme genre, describing it thus: Movement is the aptitude of natural power, poured into the whole subject capable of moving, in which it causes its own or foreign impulse; if it’s own, in man it is produced by the rational soul, spread throughout, and in the parts of the subject, which results in movement in the whole and parts, not only in its individual, but extending the impulse to the instrument that moves or incites, as in the weapon that moves, or throws.
This descriptive definition embraces more latitude than the quidditative one in this Science, where the subject is reduced to the accidental concrete, composed of man and Sword, with which it could be cinched, saying: Movement (in this Science) is aptitude of natural power, caused in the whole, and in the parts of the subject by the rational soul, from whom, as a physical and organic instrument, the virtue and motive aptitude is produced, which by impulse, and extrinsic touch is communicated to the instrument Sword.
This definition, although also generic in terms of movement, is specific in the defined subject, which is one, and admits one definition, as was proved in the tenth Predicament, with which the division can be made in the species of simple and compound movements (as this Science admits), gleaning for this the most essential, excluding what is not so proprietary.
In consideration of the species, which have been noted in the cited Authors, and others, six simple species are chosen for this Science, and others mixed, which both, and others have their origin in the six rectitudes, which touched Celio Rodigino, by opinion of Pythagoras, whom Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez seems to have followed.
The six species of movement, which are considered in the man, after having placed the arm in the plane, that corresponds to its principal center, as it comes out of the shoulder in rectitude, are 1. Down: 2. Up: 3. To his right side: 4. To the left: 5. Back: 6. Forward. The simple species of Movement, which originate from these rectitudes, are understood by their terms: 1. Natural movement, when the arm lowers: 2. Violent, when it rises: 3. Remiss, when it moves from the plane of its birth to its right side, and to the left: 4. of Reduction, when from the extremities of both, the two return to its plane: 5. Strange, when it retreats, preserving the same plane backwards: 6. Accidental, when through the same plane it returns to stand upright, as it comes out of the shoulder, without participating in the jurisdiction, which belongs to the other five species of movement.
Of these six simple species of movement, only the accident is not capable of mixing with the other movements, and the other five species are: and because these simple and compound movements, and those considered in some of the species (which take their denomination from their effects) are treated at length in the second Book, we refer to it, as its proper place is there.
Contrary to movement is what is understood by the word Stillness: and in this consideration, the Philosopher repeated, that just as there is movement contrary to another movement, so too the term that lacks movement absolutely opposes, and this is Stillness, also understood as effective deprivation of all movement, from where Plotinus said: Stillness opposes movement: then it is the opposite. Thus in temporal things he says deprivation, or change of all movement, what is named Stillness, because diametrically Stillness, and Movement are opposed.
From these certain principles, an essential definition results, saying: Stillness has its principle in the end of movement, either by suspension or by permanence. From this definition it is derived for this Science, that in the actual termination of all movement, either the beginning is given to stillness, or in the same instant that it is acquired, aptitude for new movement is obtained; and when this happens, there is no existing permanence, but instantaneous suspension. With such distinctions, what is Movement, and what is Stillness is understood in this Science, and in others, because it is always immediate to all the actions, and consummated acts of man, for the possibility of his whole, and parts in the operations of this Science.
