that he sometimes labels this a “mixing,” while at other times he insists that it is not a mixing.
First, he may describe this indwelling and fusion as a mixing and yet maintain that it involves neither metamorphosis nor change. He further claims that metamorphosis and change only arise when the mixing is between two coarse substances—such as water and wine—whereas, if one component is subtle and the other dense, that mixture, he says, remains free of alteration or transformation.
He then declares that mixing occurs in three modes. One, he says, is like wine and water; a second is like oil and water—or flax and silk; and similar things which, in his view, ought to be called a mixing even though the two natures remain distinct. Yet after counting it among the categories of mixing he immediately adds that it ought not to be called a mixing at all.
Our purpose is not to wrangle over mere words. What matters is that his contention—that one type of mixing necessarily entails change and metamorphosis whereas the other, a mixing of the subtle with the dense, does not—is an untenable claim for which he has offered no proof. Indeed, it is false; for no mixing of two entities can occur without some alteration and metamorphosis.
Moreover, the very examples and analogies he adduces turn against him, for he himself says: “When the mixture is between a subtle creation and a dense creation, that mixture is untouched by change…”