  In line with the principles of Greek ontology (and showing an evident interest in the Renaissance recovery of Parmenides’ philosophy), Cardano maintains that nothing comes out of nothing; rather, all things derive from something, and this something cannot be infinite (Hyperchen, OO, I, 284b; De natura, OO, II, 284a). Aristotle called this something “hyle or prime matter,” but Cardano prefers to discard this notion of an intermediate entity between being and non being, replacing it with the view of the elements (earth, water and air) as the material starting point and celestial heat as the efficient active principle, “for otherwise the elements would be completely redundant if there were prime matter” (De natura, OO, II, 284b). The elements, which represent the first level of organization in matter, are three (and not four as demanded by Aristotelian and scholastic physics): earth, water and air (De arcanis aeternitatis, OO, X, 9a). As for fire, Cardano considers this to be a product of celestial heat, which is one of the various streams of vital energy flowing from the supralunary sources of life and knowledge and which pervade the universe as one living organism. Innate heat of a celestial origin is the active element that mediates between the state of utter immobility which characterizes intelligible substances and the incessant mobility that defines the life of material beings. Through an exercise in introspective analysis, Cardano enumerates three principles that regulate both our inner life and the life of all created things: one “is moved and does not move, resulting from the heavy elements;” another “moves, and it is not moved, that is, the soul;” the third, finally, “is moved by the soul” and moves the body, i.e., the innate heat (Theonoston, OO, II, 304b). To the question of whether the soul can be identified with celestial heat, Cardano replies that, unlike the latter, the former is incorporeal, does not occupy any place and therefore is never in motion. Also, that which is in motion does not have that level of self-stability that is necessary for a being to be able to perceive (sentire) or to think (intelligere) (Theonoston, OO, II, 304b).