Aristotle, Physics 2.1.193b ll. 8 ff., as trans. Hardie & Gaye. I was put onto this by Michele M. Schumacher,"Gender Ideology and the 'Artistic' Fabrication of Human Sex: Nature as Norm or the Remaking of the Human?," The Thomist 80, no. 3 (July 2016): 398-399 (363–423). Greek from the Teubner edition of 1879 ed. Prantl:
ἔτι γίνεται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἀνθρώπου, αλλ' οὐ κλίνη ἐκ κλίνης (διό φασι τὸ σκῆμα ουκ εἶναι τὴν φύσιν ἀλλὰ τὸ ξύλον [ὅτι γένοιτ´ ἄν, εἰ βλαστάνοι, οὐ κλίνη ἀλλὰ ξύλον]· . . .)
Schumacher:
"This requirement of ancient and medieval art, or craftsmanship—namely, that creative ingenuity be matched by practical knowledge of one’s art, including knowledge of the natural properties of the materials employed therein—thus points to natural limitations. The forms invented by man are, after all, limited by the forms created by God, whence the classic distinction between res artificiales and res naturales. '[I]f you planted a bed and the rotting wood acquired the power of sending up a shoot,' Aristotle explains by way of an example, 'it would not be a bed that would come up, but wood.' This, he suggests, demonstrates that the organization that is effected by the rules of art 'is merely an incidental attribute,' whereas the order attributable to nature 'persists continuously through the process of making.' In short, whereas 'art imitates nature,' the reverse is not the case: Nature does not imitate art. Both human art and ethical action are necessarily, that is to say, naturally, limited by divine art; for God 'alone can produce a form in matter, without the aid of any preceding material form.'"
