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.