  Regarding the hierarchical arrangement of the ontological principles, there is a certain oscillation in the way Cardano distributes them along the various degrees of being, but by and large we can say that God understood as the One represents the ultimate source of order and activity in the universe, and all the rest emanates from it in the form of increasingly more plural and less integrated entities, from intellects to souls, from the soul of the world to individual souls, from the soul to nature, from celestial to earthly animals, from forms to scattered matter. In De arcanis aeternitatis, Cardano lists fourteen genera of beings, a number that, in his opinion, “matches the structure of the universe:” three elements (earth, water, air), celestial heat, stones, plants, living creatures generated from putrescent matter (animantia ex putredine), quadrupeds, birds, fish, reptiles, human beings, demons, and God (De arcanis aeternitatis, OO, X, 8b).